The never-ending search

U of M’s outrageous search engine

BEN PROGGEMILLER STAFF

Anyone who tries to use the University of Manitoba UMinfo search engine located at www.umanitoba.ca will find it to be the most counterintuitive, frustrating and useless tool in the history of mankind. Actually, it’s downright hilarious when you’re not actually trying to find something — recently I think U2 has been dedicating “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” to our search engine.

The U of M search engine is based on Google and makes horrible use of the multibillion-dollar corporation’s capabilities. Some of the results are pretty outstanding, to say the least. Here are a few case studies with the first three, supposedly most relevant, results of each term.

Case No. 1 — Search term: “parking pass”

1. A FAQ on children’s aquatic programs in the spring. It discusses parking passes under the question, “Where do I park to drop off my child? Where do I park to watch my child participate?”

2. A sign-up form for the astronomy workshop series for Manitoba teachers from Aug. 21-25, 2006. “We have parking passes available for a cost of $15 for the week . . . the deadline to request a parking pass is August 4, 2006.”

3. The International Centre for Students website, pertaining to transportation in Winnipeg. Parking passes are mentioned in the car section wedged between taxi and bicycle.

Interestingly enough, the third result is the most relevant.

Case No. 2 — Search term: “the Manitoban”

First of all, it asked me if I meant “the manitoba” instead. Ironically, regular Google had the Manitoban website as its first result.

1. The University of Manitoba Centre for Ukrainian Canadian Studies

2. A timeline of the history of nursing in Manitoba.

3. A posting on the virtual learning commons about volunteering for the Manitoban. The last reply occurred on Nov. 5, 2006.

Case No. 3 — Search term: “Carson Jerema”

I was curious, so I decided to try the current editor-in-chief of the Manitoban and my glorious benefactor. There were only two results.

1. A PDF contact sheet for the Manitoba Institute of Cell Biology containing Carson’s contact information at the Manitoban. At least it’s current.

2. An article he wrote for the culture section in 2004 chronicling the touching of a woman’s breast. I wish I could make this stuff up.

Case No. 4: Search term — “paying tuition”

I thought this one would work properly. I expected to be whisked right to the registrar’s office and be told exactly how to pay. Unfortunately, they even managed to screw up the process of taking money from me.

1. A graduate studies pamphlet for the 2005-06 year. At least it actually mentioned fees.

2. A site about what to do if your account is on hold.

3. The informational site for outgoing engineering students interested in international exchange programs.

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While not all of the results are particularly funny, they are intriguing. I don’t claim to know exactly how Google works, but I expect results at least related to what I searched for. I find it strange that going to www.google.com can provide better results than U of M’s version when searching for items related to our fine university.

That’s why if I run for UMSU president next year, my platform is going to be primarily concerned with the synchronizing of all the clocks throughout the university and secondarily with the fixing of our search engine. With a winning platform like that, maybe the election will be a little more contested next year.