LGSearch is something of an anomaly in my ‘portfolio’ of stuff I’ve made in that is actually works and is useful. I built it a couple of years ago while working as Risk Management Officer at a County Council. Essentially, I found it a pain in the neck to find relevant material online using traditional search engines, so I put my own together.

It’s based on Google’s Customised Search service, which requires you to provide a list of sites you want the search to be limited to. What I did originally was find an online list of all local authority sites and plug that in. This way, searching for a term generated results only from local government.

Later I developed things a bit further, adding in a variety of other public sector sites, such as those in central government, police, fire and health authorities and some of the organisations in and around government. Google helps here too: by categorising sites under the headings mentioned, users can then drill down into results by clicking a link to produce results from just, say, central government. Nice one.

The site has been pretty popular, with usage increasing as word gets around. Some councils have even embedded it in their own sites. There is a Google Group set up to manage requests for change, etc, which if you visit it, will show how terrible I am at keeping on top of it. Now I have some more time for this stuff, that will improve. There is also the list of sites searched, which could well be out of date. If you need changes made, email the list or just me.

Anyway, after all that introduction, I have today made a significant change to the site, long overdue, which has included various bits of social media to the search, including a load of blogs. These have all been added under the category of ’social media’ so if you just want to search these sites, you can. The blogs added are (just pasting URLs as I am lazy):

• http://whitehallwebby.wordpress.com/
• http://steve-dale.net/
• http://tom-watson.co.uk/
• http://lostconsciousness.wordpress.com/
• http://davepress.net/
• http://digital-pioneer.blogspot.com/
• http://mulqueeny.wordpress.com/
• http://paulcanning.blogspot.com/
• http://puffbox.com/
• http://andrewkbrown.wordpress.com/
• http://carlhaggerty.wordpress.com/
• http://ideapolicy.wordpress.com/
• http://blogblogblog.ws/
• https://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/
• http://extendedreach.wordpress.com/
• http://lordsoftheblog.wordpress.com/
• http://www.owen.org/blog/
• http://blog.helpfultechnology.com/
• http://strategytalk.typepad.com/public_strategy/
• http://www.futuregovconsultancy.com/
• http://neilojwilliams.net/missioncreep/
• http://gallomanor.com/
• http://civicsurf.org.uk/

Any heinous ommissions, let me know.

Tagged: findability, google cse, lgsearch, personalised search, public sector

Possibly related posts:

• Build your own search engine
• Social reporting at Cisco08 Public Sector Summit
• Google gives an insight into search
• Public sector blogging in the Guardian
• Rethinking government news