I’ve Tried Google Already…
September 5th, 2006Jenny used virtual Reference and blogged about it:
“In each of the three instances, the librarian came back with a URL from the top five results of a Google search. Clearly. There wasn’t even a pretense of anything else. If you can believe it, one of them even unkowingly sent me a link to a friend’s blog that referenced a report that mentioned a potentially useful statistic. I thanked the first librarian, disconnected, and spent my time doing the research myself. But the second and third times, I really needed the librarian to find an authoritative answer, so I kept asking for more. In one case, I had to actually ask, ‘Don’t you have databases you can search that are more authoritative that Google?’ At which point, the librarian sent me a link to my home library’s list of databases. Talk about not understanding the concept. In another case, I was given a URL to a list of reports and told one might have what I wanted. When I pointed out that none of the titles seemed relevant to my specific request, a further search of the web ensued.”
…
“So like Jessamyn, I wonder what value we are providing to people when we promote these services but then just offer Googled results. As pointed out in the comments on her post, sometimes that is helpful to some users. But at what point should the virtual librarian begin to look somewhere other than Google for an answer? Why do we know when to do this in person but apparently not online? What is a virtual librarian and what value does she add?”
Amazing, right? I’ve ranted on and on and on about librarians using Google and naturally defualting to the engine (and why that is a bad thing), so no sense in blogging about it again. Oh, what the heck.
I use Google and I use it well. I know almost every Google trick in the book. When librarians use Google, we should be kicking its tuchas, not just typing in one or two words. Anyone can do that. Advanced search anyone?
“Virtual reference librarians” (I’m one for hundreds of lawyers) should use all resources available to them to answer questions correctly. If it’s Google, it’s Google; but please, for the sake of all researchers everywhere, don’t do what everyone else can do. If we are the experts, we should start behaving like it. If you can’t so this, get off the reference desk.
Here’s an idea. We should start every reference interview with the assumption that the person standing in front of us (physically or virtually) has already tried Google. Ok, let me recant a bit. We should actually ask them if they did and what their keywords were. Then we, the experts, should take over and, well, kick tuchas.