One of the initial points of this thread had the audacity to say:
"Stop Bashing Google." I think there is a middle ground between blindly
accepting Google as perfect and treating it as useless.
When I search for "Caravaggio paintings" (without quotes), I am not
aware of any library catalog that does as a good of a job with this
search query.
I get a nice cluster of images, top three links are not bad at all...
caravaggio.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravaggio
www.wga.hu/html/c/caravagg/index.html
Latest news on Caravaggio, current and from respected newspapers.
Click on Maps, and find a map of the Caravaggio paints.
I can also mis-spell:
"Showing results for Caravaggio paintings. Search instead for
Carravaggio paintings"
I certainly wouldn't want to write a masters thesis with only these
search results, but not a bad start. What is missing is library
representation, the only time I am bumping into libraries in this search
result is in Google Books when I get the link "find it in a library".
Another initial point in the Copernican post was that books are not the
center of the information universe.
--Jimmy
--
Jimmy Ghaphery
Head, Library Information Systems
VCU Libraries
http://www.library.vcu.edu
--
Weinheimer Jim wrote:
> First, I agree with many things you say.
>
> Alexander Johannesen wrote:
> <snip>
>> Still, it has always been my opinion that the main part of a library
>> that determines its worth is its selection.
>
> Then I think you're in bigger trouble than you think. The only
> libraries that comes well out of this are those where researches and
> historians hang out. Maybe that's a worthy consolation price, though.
> But the library as a public service to the masses won't hold up to
> selection; it is this *very* selection that makes people go straight
> for Amazon.com instead of putting themselves on the 3 month waiting
> queue for some popular and selected book.
> </snip>
>
> My own experience proves otherwise. I think that people are realizing that when they type in "Caravaggio paintings" into Google, the results are essentially useless. I meet this all the time as students come to me in a total panic and need help *now*. As the public learns more and more about how to manipulate Google results to their own advantage, and the searcher for "Caravaggio paintings" sees, e.g.
>
> BUY MY CARAVAGGIO POSTERS!
> BUY *MY* CARAVAGGIO POSTERS!
> BUY **MY** CARAVAGGIO POSTERS!!
> BUY ***MY*** CARAVAGGIO POSTERS!!!
> BUY ****MY**** CARAVAGGIO POSTERS!!!!
> ...
>
> the Google results will become increasingly useless. In fact, I think Google itself has agreed to this implicitly by implementing the left-hand options for revising the search, including tools such as that eerie Wonder Wheel that hasn't helped me at all! In any case, I can rework the results somewhat more, but for those who understand the traditional methods, these options are still far too elementary. Adding an option to filter for "quality"--however that would come to be defined--would be far more important than, e.g. Sites with images.
>
> These are the sorts of things that could begin to turn Google from a popularity machine good for getting a sense of a "cultural moment in time", into something more durable and ultimately more useful for serious purposes. Yet, this would be reimagination on a huge scale. (I still believe a promising method would be through innovative browser plugins)
>
> And yes, I think librarians have a huge role, and probably a dominant role, to play. Will it happen? Not so long as they spend their efforts and resources on projects such as RDA which will force catalogers to change their tools and learn how to use them (a tremendous undertaking by the way), while changing nothing at all for our users(!!).
>
> One final note:
> <snip>
> The only libraries that comes well out of this are those where researches and historians hang out.
> </snip>
>
> Some of my favorite libraries have been the smallest, so long as they are well selected. For example, that is when I began to experience the real power of the classification, which I discovered could actually provoke me in all kinds of ways and led me to some wonderful books I would never have even considered reading before.
>
> James L. Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
> Director of Library and Information Services
> The American University of Rome
> Rome, Italy
Received on Wed Jul 07 2010 - 10:01:41 EDT