David,
Apologies for the delay in responding; things have been rather busy here
lately. During the delay, other people have been making the sort of
arguments I would make, and Martin Kelleher yesterday gave a
particularly clear statement, so I will just respond on a few points,
and I have interfiled responses at the relevant places below.
Alan
==============================
Mr A.V. Exelby,
Systems/Databases Librarian.
The Library,
University of East Anglia,
Norwich, NR4 7TJ
Tel.: 01603 592432
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
================================
"Man, who'd have thought being a librarian could be so tough"
Seamus Harper, in 'Harper 2.0', "Andromeda".
>-----Original Message-----
>From: A general Library and Information Science list for news
>and discussion. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
>David Kane
>Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 2:30 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Find 0.0
>
>Hi Alan,
>
>You may be correct in saying that at this point the world's information
>mostly remains in print, but the soon cord will be mostly cut between
>physical location of data and the users of that data. Librarianship is
>being completely redefined, along with much else, by rampant
>'Googlization'.
See Martin Kelleher's response.
>
>Making catalogues like Google is a *good* thing because it can be used
>in a simple fashion using general keywords. I, for one, want
>to give as
>many people access to as much information as possible. I want to
>empower them and make them feel confident in their own ability
>to search
>and discover. I want to get young people into libraries and old people
>and everyone who wants to solve a problem or learn something. It is
>disingenuous of you to imply that there are only simple searches in the
>new library OPACs - like Google, they all have access to complex syntax
>for refining their searches. Let us not scare people off with complex
>search routines so they never come back to the library again. Without
>exception, we all want to help users search more effectively but let's
>start them off easy.
See other responses. A few extra observations:
- I believe there is indeed a trend towards 'simple' searches. I have
seen library systems with keyword-only options (no browse lists), and
many where the browse options are not at all clear so that many users
never realise they exist until pointed out by staff; I have also heard
(but not seen) that, in some libraries, staff who do user-ed refuse to
teach anything but general keyword searching. Current trends in putting
truncated library search options portals, VLEs etc. also all tend to
rely on a general keyword search, or at best on a variety of keyword
options, but no lists, and cutting out all the excellent functions in
OPACs.
- you do not 'empower' people by offering default search options that
may leave them spending hours (no exaggeration) ploughing through
hundreds, even thousands of inappropriate results, or indeed leave them
failing to find materials your library has. There are search options
many times better than a general keyword search that you could offer as
a default - even if you limit yourself to *keyword* searching, look at
the ABE Books option, which is very easy to use and seems to me to be
the best you can get without list indexes. (However, years of experience
on ABE Books have confirmed to me that even well-designed keyword
searches are sometimes seriously inefficient compared with lists.)
- when I have shown list options to readers, they have never seen them
as 'complex search routines', they have been delighted to discover them.
- a couple of examples of where keyword indexes *failed completely*
(both 'real cases', caught only because I happened to be near the
reference desk at the time): a reader was sent away saying the library
had no available copy of a work by Oscar Wilde, when a copy was on the
shelves as part of a set of Wilde's collected works; and a reader was
almost sent away informed that the library had no works by Tennessee
Williams (it actually hs about 80 titles), because neither the reader
nor the librarian could spell 'Tennessee' and the librarian initially
had no thought to use the Browse list options to check this and assumed
the library had no books by him!
>
>I don't get your point about Google being staggeringly inefficient.
>Let the search for knowledge be profligate and let it return abundant
>harvests for those who want to. It's free and we have processing power
>to burn. What's the big deal?
Google, and OPACs that follow it, waste *time* - often a great deal of
it. As other people have commented in this debate, so does Amazon. If I
do a search on a library OPAC, using list indexes where appropriate, I
can get answers in moments (or I can equally quickly reach the point
where I can be sure that the library does not have what I want and know
that it is safe to stop); if I do a search on Amazon, I may waste
minutes and in some cases hours ploughing through unwanted hits I cannot
exclude; and it is far worse on Google. I could provide examples if you
want. I am not suggesting Google ought to try to create list indexes or
even more focussed kinds of keyword searching (impossible when you do
not have structured data such as you get in library catalogues); but
when you can have those things, and they allow huge gains in efficiency
for those willing to learn them, they should be defended strongly.
All this is even before one considers the extra benefits that libraries
offer in terms of mechanisms, such as 'see' and 'see-also' references,
that can greatly help the user. LCSH, for example, represents a century
or so of experience in aiding readers to get to what they really want -
which is often not what they say they want, or what they first search
under (it has been well-established that users almost always search
under subject terms that are far too general); see-also references guide
readers in very specific ways to where they need to be, and you do not
get the benfit of these in keyword searches. Googlization effecively
means throwing out such mechanisms and all the experience that lies
behind them, and I believe that we should not be throwing them out but
defending them vigorously.
>
>By the way, I think that it is kind of disrespectful to say things like
>'dumb down to their level of ignorance' when referring to our library
>patrons. There's something in that statement I just don't like. I
>chose my current job for a number of reasons, but one of them
>was that I love helping people. I find that rewarding. I certainly
don't see
>ignoramuses walking through those library gates. What I see is a
>wonderful variety of people who have lifetimes of experiences and
>knowledge. All this is coming IN to the library. If I can help to add
>just a little knowledge to what they already have when they leave the
>library, then I have done my job.
I too love helping people, though my current post has rather taken me
away from it. And there is no problem with people who are willing to
learn. However, some of them are not, certainly not when it comes to the
library. Librarians know how to ignore some types of demand, e.g. the
demands (which I have seen made repeatedly over many years) to stop
buying foreign language material; but when it comes to equally wrong
demands to 'be more like Google', the trend is to give way, to accept
this as a legitimate demand and to forget all the things we know about
how to do things better. I do not think that they should be doing this.
Readers who make such demands are *rejecting* that they have anything to
learn, and if libraries go along with it, to me that constitutes dumbing
down.
>
>Yours,
>
>David Kane
>WIT Libraries
>http://library.wit.ie/
>++353.51302838
>
>
>>>> "Exelby Alan Mr (LIB)" <[log in to unmask]> 19/06/2007 13:36 >>>
>John,
>
>I think I agree with all this. There is a century's worth of
>experience
>in librarianship of information retrieval, including the understanding
>that the methods readers like and what is most efficient/effective are
>not the same thing, but a lot of this seems to be ignored in favour of
>the latest fads. The constant assertion that 'young people' know all
>about how to use computers is often extended to a belief that they
>know
>how to use them *effectively*, and that libraries should dumb down to
>their level of ignorance rather than teaching them the truth - an
>especially inappropriate belief for libraries in academic
>institutions.
>
>My own betes noires concern 1) the 'Google fallacy' - that readers
>like
>Google and think it is good (even though it is often staggeringly
>inefficient), so libraries try to make their OPACs like Google,
>relying
>on general-keyword searches when more specific searches, or list
>indexes, would be vastly more effective; and 2) the whole idea that
>the
>internet contains a significant part of the world's wisdom (it
>doesn't;
>except for a few subjects, most is still available only in print).
>
>Alan
>
>==============================
>Mr A.V. Exelby,
>Systems/Databases Librarian.
>The Library,
>University of East Anglia,
>Norwich, NR4 7TJ
>
>Tel.: 01603 592432
>E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>================================
>"Man, who'd have thought being a librarian could be so tough"
>Seamus Harper, in 'Harper 2.0', "Andromeda".
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: A general Library and Information Science list for news
>>and discussion. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
>>Lindsay, John M
>>Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 12:34 PM
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Find 0.0
>>
>>At an inaugural lecture last night, while the speaker was
>>enthusiasing about Web 2.0 someone asked the question, or made
>>the point, that searching isn't the point of the exercise,
>>finding is, and showed the National Record Office as a case.
>>
>>
>>
>>By accident, unless a tinzle fairy organises these things, I
>>had the catalogue for Internet Librarian International land on
>>my table the same day.
>>
>>
>>
>>This seems to me to be full of Web 2.0 stuff with just about
>>nothing obvious on the traditional skills and professional
>>competences which made libraries libraries.
>>
>>
>>
>>Is the plot being lost?
>>
>>
>>
>>In Librarians for Social Change I argued we had to improve the
>>political, historical, philosophical, cultural, aspect of our
>>competences, not throw them out entirely.
>>
>>
>>
>>With the computer industry forcing grep and search upon us,
>>with social tagging and social networking, it seems now that
>>re-asserting the essential competences is more important than
>>ever, but the profession is remarkably silent, like it has
>>given up, yet the ILI is badged with CILIP.
>>
>>
>>
>>Perhaps we need to reform the library association?
>>
>>
>>
>>Incidently, sorry for the 20= etc which appear in messages in
>>digest mode, I know it makes text almost unreadable, but is
>>beyond my control and imposed I think by the digesting software?
>>
>>
>>This email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs Email
>>Security System.
>>
>
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