Ross Singer schrieb:
>
> Well, right. Learning opportunities should be limited to "his name is
> actually spelled Thomas Friedman, not Thomas Freidmann" -- because this
> would be an issue outside of the catalog -- as opposed to "when
> searching for authors please Friedman, Thomas". That, quite frankly, is
> the kind of lesson that can be done away with since it's learning how to
> use a poorly designed technology.
>
You are mentioning only one of the simplest aspects here.
What must be learnt is, I think, that as a catalog or search engine
user you're dealing with a machine that handles character strings,
not meaning, not questions, not intentions, and what it brings up are no
answers. While sometimes it will display something that matches your
intentions, it can utterly fail on other occasions. This can become
apparent much sooner when searching in non-English languages with all
their beauty of inflections. Technology might do more here, but only
if we had better metadata - for example, a language indicator with
every title.
But Google goes a long way without any metadata? Well, look a bit closer
at what it does and doesn't do, what it can and what it cannot possibly
do. Will be helpful.
What, OTOH, *should* catalog users learn in order to be successcul
users? Nothing at all? "You need not think!" above the input slot - is
that the ultimate ideal?
Asking a machine *is* vastly different from asking a human, there's
no way around that, and particulary, if what you toss into the slot
is not actually a question but a mere two or three character strings.
What is it that people now do learn when using Google, and is that
enough, can it be enough, ought it be enough, for catalogs? Is it
enough, coming to think of it, for Google itself? If not, what is
it, and should libraries bother?
Is it possible these days, btw, to say, ok, my aim is to play the
Mondschein sonata, but don't bother me with learning scales first
and chords! But well, that's got nothing to do with catalogs, they
can have none of that complexity.
Regards, B.E.
Received on Mon Jun 12 2006 - 04:18:42 EDT