I can't see it myself..
-----Original Message-----
From: UK medical/ health care library community / information workers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Jennings Val (RGZ)
Sent: 18 November 2004 15:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Google Scholar - one to watch
I wonder if this is a threat, or perhaps I should say "challenge" to Dialog,
NLH, NeLH et al. How long before our clients give up the uneven struggle of
remembering all the finer user points of these services and stick with
Google? And how long then before the central funding for these starts to
dwindle in response to lack of use? Google seems to have pipped the SSE to
the post.
Val
Val Jennings
Library Service Manager,
Queen Mary's Sidcup NHS Trust
Charnley Library, Frognal Centre
Frognal Avenue
Sidcup Kent
DA14 6LT
email: [log in to unmask]
TN: 020 8302 2678 x4393
020 8302 2504
Fax: 020 8308 9384
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. (Cicero)
For quality health information at your desktop visit NeLH (the National
electronic Library for Health) @ http://www.nelh.nhs.uk.
To find out more try the 5 minute tour at http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/tour
-----Original Message-----
From: Mcsean, Tony (ELS) [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 18 November 2004 12:18
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Google Scholar - one to watch
In response to Michele's points here and the accounts of Google Scholar
searches:
The issue, and the threat, as I see it is not whether or not Scholar is any
good, or whether or not we think it is as good as we are. It is whether it
is *good enough* and whether our users think it is ok for there needs to the
extent they can cut out another intermediary. As a profession we have to
face a situation where the information tools available to our users will
steadily improve and with each improvement the proportion of users who have
wriggled free of their dependence on our support will have increased.
We can still say with some justification that their information seeking
behaviour is on the whole less effective than ours, and we can probably say
that in some cases this gap is significant and likely to have some effect on
patient outcomes.
But I would contend that it is beyond doubt that the gap is narrowing and
that we are in a situation where the effective gap (ie outcome affecting)
between the professionally supplied searcher and our old friends the
Satisfied Inept is beginning to narrow down to specialised and perhaps
easily predefined situations. In 30 years we've gone from experimental
batched-up overnight Medlars searches output to print to experimental
concept-mapped, pattern recognition searching and most of this change has
been in the last 5 years.
One of the features of web take-up has been a readiness on the part of
non-specialists to jettison peripheral nice-to-haves - decent typography,
page layouts, personal service by intermediaries. Another has been that
services have effectively become distance-independent (anyone know where
Amazon is?) As a professional group that has turned being a transparent
intermediary into an art form and which gives a high value to tailoring
collections to what we perceive as local requirements, these are worrying
times.
Tony
Tony McSeán
Director of Library Relations
Office: +44 1865 843630
Mobile: +44 7795 960516
-----Original Message-----
From: UK medical/ health care library community / information workers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hilton Boon Michele
Sent: 18 November 2004 11:12
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Google Scholar - one to watch
>The question is, how are libraries going to
adapt in the face of this kind of competition?
Google is an excellent tool, but librarians still offer a lot of things that
Google doesn't, and probably never will:
-information literacy/skills training - to show people how to use search
tools effectively and how to manage the information retrieved
-critical appraisal/information mastery training - to sort through and
evaluate all the information retrieved
-collection development and web development - to create collections and
portals (which we must, in turn, market effectively) that will save users
time
-facility management/systems librarianship - to ensure that users have
access to computers and know how to use them (without which they can't
access Google, among many other things)
-expert literature searching - Google will still contribute to information
overload and produce masses of irrelevant information for users who don't
have our search skills
-interlibrary loans - for all the documents that turn up in a Google search,
but aren't available for free in full-text
Just a few ideas!
Michele
----------------------------------------------------
Michele Hilton Boon
Information Scientist
National Prescribing Centre
Tel: 0151 794 8136
Fax: 0151 794 8139
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Web: www.npc.co.uk
Clear, safe knowledge on tap: Health Libraries Week 2004: 15th - 21st
November
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-----Original Message-----
From: UK medical/ health care library community / information workers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Bailey, Richard
Sent: 18 November 2004 10:32
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Google Scholar - one to watch
Some very interesting developments from Google, between this and Google
Print (http://print.google.com). Gary Price hits the nail on the head: what
need scholarly libraries when we have scholarly Google (from the end user
perspective)? This reflects a few things brought up in the OCLC
Environmental Scan (http://www.oclc.org/membership/escan/default.htm).
Hats off to Google though. The question is, how are libararies going to
adapt in the face of this kind of competition?
Richard Bailey
Knowledge Services Manager
Basildon Healthcare Library
01268 598272
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Fricker [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 18 November 2004 09:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Google Scholar - one to watch
Dear all,
Now in beta - Google Scholar
http://scholar.google.com
From the about page:
Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly
literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints,
abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use
Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic
publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and
universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.
Write up by Gary Price at Resource Shelf
http://www.resourceshelf.com/2004/11/wow-its-google-scholar.html
An interesting development!
Cheers
Alan
Alan Fricker
Knowledge & Library Service Manager
Knowledge & Library Service
Newham University Hospital NHS Trust
Glen Road, Plaistow
E13 8SL
Tel: 020 7363 8016
Fax: 020 7363 8087
email: [log in to unmask]
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