Religious Search Engines For A Thousand, Please

This week in the School of Library & Information Science, a student emailed a link on the listserv for SLIS students to check-out. The link lead to an article on NPR titled Religious Search Engines Yield Tailored Results. You can imagine that this email got people within the school buzzing, but is it really that big of a deal? Based on the dialogue it generated I’d say so, which is partly why I decided to discuss it in my blog this week.

Shea Houdmann runs SeekFind, a Colorado Springs-based Christian search engine that only returns results from websites that are consistent with the Bible (Nosheen, 2010). He says SeekFind is designed “to promote what we believe to be biblical truth” and excludes sites that don’t meet that standard (Nosheen, 2010). But SeekFind isn’t the only search engine carving a niche market among religious Internet users (Nosheen, 2010). There is also Jewogle for Jews and I’mHalal a Muslim search engine that started in the Netherlands (Nosheen, 2010).

As a Christian, I have never used a Christian search engine and I don’t plan to start in the near future. Although, checking out SeekFind might not be such a bad idea! My searches take place primarily on library catalogs and databases due to the nature of my school work. In my spare time, I have no problem using Google, Yahoo, and/or other search engines because they have yet to compromise my faith or spiritual growth. If something should come up that I don’t agree with I may be tempted to select it for hilarity or curiosity sake without having damned my soul to Hell (Pun Intended).

According to Michael Gartenberg, a partner at technology research firm Altimeter Group, these religiously centered search engines are bringing new users to the web (Nosheen, 2010). But not everybody has been supportive of the idea. Some people call it censorship (Nosheen, 2010). Some who oppose such search engines argue that allowing people to only access material that they already agree with will lead to an intolerant society (Nosheen, 2010).

Final Thoughts: I greatly disagree with the comment about people accessing material through religious search engines leading to an intolerant society. Culturally, and faith wise I believe that religious search engines are cool! To see people pulling together and creating technology that they prefer is fascinating. That’s good news to me! Religious search engines are no different than an angry parent coming into a library and demanding that a controversial book be banned. In fact, couldn’t one argue that despite the book being controversial it’s a least promoting literary interest within her child and perhaps others? Faith-based or religious search engines can be viewed in the exact same light because while they may censor/filter results, they are drawing new users to the web.

References

Nosheen, H. (2010, September 13). Religious Search Engines Yield Tailored Results. National Public Radio. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129709336