If only I had a nickel for every time someone suggests that libraries could out-Google Google..... :-)
Nancy Cochran asks:
"My question is, why do libraries, with their wide-reaching motives and goals, acquiesce to the likes of Google?"
Google is a single entity, with fairly straightforward goals and decision-making processes. The library community is actually thousands of entities (both libraries and librarians), not all of which are heading in the same direction. And as far as decision-making goes, no one is in charge of the library community. Nancy suggests that "Libraries are stuck in their own bureaucracy". The library community as a whole is not a bureaucracy. The community is thousands of little bureaucracies, many of which do not play well together (note: I'm not saying these bureacracies intentionally do not play well together, just that there are competing interests and missions, etc.).
I think the only realistic way that librarians can move forward rapidly in this area will be through a relatively small group (or groups) of talented dedicated people that is beholden to no one, and thus is not obligated to spend huge amounts of time engaged in consensus building. They would be free to forge ahead and do what they think is best. I think the library community as a whole has already missed the boat on this.
Bernie Sloan
Nancy Cochran <nancy.cochran_at_EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:
Jim Weinheimer responded to the entry below with his own entry. My
comment:
I agree with you completely, entirely, without exception. You help make my
point. My question is, why do libraries, with their wide-reaching motives
and goals, acquiesce to the likes of Google? Librarians can do what they
do now _and_ what Google does. (Libraries already do the harder of the two
parts.)
Now, give users "customer satisfaction."
Make it transparent and you'll outdo Google. (Some of us are not real fond
of sausage.)
If I was to provide an answer to my own question, (as an outsider) I would
say that Libraries are stuck in their own bureaucracy.
> [Original Message]
> From: Weinheimer Jim
> To:
> Date: 1/3/2008 10:20:23 AM
> Subject: [NGC4LIB] Relevance ranking: was Aqua Browser
>
> > On 12/22/07, Nancy Cochran wrote:
> >
> > > Considering Google - not sausage - what are the lines of code that
> > > normalize the feminine and the masculine; the singular and the
plural; the
> > > past, present and future tense; capital letters and lower case
characters;
> > > silly punctuation like an apostrophe to indicate
> > ownership; parts of
> > > speech as simple as nouns and verbs? And then of course, how
> > does Google
> > > get the differing language versions of the same universally used word?
> > > It is important to note that they often do. And they do it in
> > the
> > > background.
>
> I got into this rather late, but I would like to point out that the
purpose of Google vs. the purpose of libraries is completely different and
this is reflected in their tools. Google is a business and as such, aims at
"Customer satisfaction." Therefore, if the customer is satisfied, that is
the end of their responsibility.
>
> I would contend that librarians practice a profession, such as doctors or
lawyers. A doctor worries less about satisfying the customer, i.e. telling
patients what they want to hear, and tells them what they need to hear.
This may make the patient/customer very angry. Librarians follow a code of
ethics, which does not even exist for businesses such as Google. The ALA
code is at:
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/statementspols/codeofethics/codeethics.htm
>
> A few of them can be pointed to for thought:
>
> II. We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all
efforts to censor library resources.
> III. We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality
with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted,
borrowed, acquired or transmitted.
> VI. We do not advance private interests at the expense of library users,
colleagues, or our employing institutions.
> VII. We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional
duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair
representation of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access
to their information resources.
>
> This is quite different from what you find at Google, where you can find
obvious and numerous instances of google-bombing (and how many are not so
obvious?!), and the idea of privacy and advancing private interests is just
lacking in Google. Google censors itself in China; Yahoo helps send Chinese
journalists to prison. The list can go on.
>
> ***Please note*** that I am not saying anything bad about Google and
other search engines--I'm just pointing out that they are quite different
from libraries, which deal with information in completely different ways,
and include reliability and completeness of results, a lack of bias, no
profiting, etc. We should not expect anything else from profit-making
businesses, since this is how they operate. It would be unfair to expect a
code of ethics from them.
>
> Therefore, people who look in Google for materials about "Dostoyevsky"
may be really happy until they realize what they are missing because of
different spellings of the name, some of them quite strange. I believe
that one of the primary tasks of librarians today should be to let people
know what they are missing.
>
> The term "relevance" is an advertising device, such as McDonald's "We do
it all for you." The problem is, while I believe very few people really
believed that McDonald's really does do it all for everybody else except
themselves, I fear that users of Google believe literally that the items
they are looking at really are the "relevant" ones. But I don't know.
Perhaps I'm wrong.
>
> James Weinheimer
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Received on Thu Jan 03 2008 - 17:48:08 EST