Jonathan,
Good response. I agree with you about the user's and leeway - I was
thinking more about librarian's understandable self-critical tendencies
and obsessions (based on the reality that is Google) about having our
users think as little - and as painlessly - as possible.
Obviously, we don't want to make it as hard as possible either, but you
know what I mean... I think technological efficiency is a good value
except when it lurches towards supremacy.
Regard,
Nathan Rinne
Media Cataloging Technician
Educational Service Center
11200 93rd Avenue North
Maple Grove MN. 55369
Email: rinnen_at_district279.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rochkind
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 9:11 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] A little leeway for WolpramAlpha
I still think that the WolframAlpha thing is mostly a victory of
publicity, and I'll be surprised if it becomes a regular part of very
many user's toolkits, even specialists.
In part for reasons that Weinberger identifies.
So, no, I don't expect that most users will give WolframAlpha any more
'leeway' (to be confusing and not give them what they want) than they
give our interfaces, or anything else they use.
Jonathan
Rinne, Nathan (ESC) wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Just an interesting observation about WolpramAlpha (vis a vis Google)
> from David Weinberger:
>
> "The overall conclusion is, I think, that it's going to take a while
for
> WA to train us on the sorts of questions it can answer and how best to
> ask those questions."
>
>
http://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/2009/05/08/wolframalpha-vs-goog
> le/
>
> Oh, the horror! That one would even consider making things so dang
hard
> for the user. Of course eventually, we will no doubt be able to
> directly link our brains into the network and all these difficulties
> will be eliminated though. : )
>
> And of course, perhaps since WA uses less real-live people in its
> day-to-day functioning, we'll give it a little bit more leeway, right?
>
> Better be gearing up to become more of a machine myself, huh? : )
>
> Nathan Rinne
> Media Cataloging Technician
> Educational Service Center
> 11200 93rd Avenue North
> Maple Grove MN. 55369
> Email: rinnen_at_district279.org
>
>
Received on Mon May 11 2009 - 11:51:45 EDT