Contrast a Web-based search with a visit to a local library. When I go to the library, I stop at the catalog terminal long enough to find the general area that has piqued my interest. Often, I'm looking for a specific book. Many times these distractions are not productive, but every so often they lead me to new materials whose existence I did not know, yet they were more relevant to my interest than the book I had originally sought out. No, not at all.
Technology can be a valuable tool in restoring serendipity.
When I log onto Amazon's Web site, I'm offered a glimpse at recommendations of books based on my previous buying pattern. It is as if I had a personal agent who knew me well enough to make recommendations, and toss in something out of the blue every so often. In fact, it is this feature of Amazon, more than any other, that brings me back time after time. As for exploring the Web in general, there is nothing sacred about the design of search engines that forces them to present search results in the form they do. When used in conjunction with directories such as Yahoo, for example, the user had an experience similar to that of walking through a library stack, with similar content located in similar regions of this navigable space.