Classes on Search
September 25th, 2006Lisa Harrington blogs:
“This semester, one of the courses I’m taking is Digital Information Services and Providers on Monday nights with Cynthia Cheng Correia, principal at Knowledge inForm. We’re focusing on the search industry as a whole as well as learning search techniques using search engines. Class discussion has been mostly about where librarians fit in the search industry and how search engines work as well as the differences between the various engines available. At first I was a little bit concerned that it would be very basic but I’m happy to say I’ve already learned quite a bit. Because of the class, I’ve been keeping on top of adding to my rss feeds and making more time to read articles regarding search and technology…something I enjoy anyway!”
Yahoo! (search pun intended). I’m hoping that more library schools are providing classes on how to use search engines to their fullest extent, how to keep up with the industry, and how to well, kick the engines’ tuchas. 
I took a similar class in library school and I was terribly bored with it. We were taught basic search skills which really could have been taught at the YMCA to newbies. Sure, some needed a 101 course, but it should have also dealt with advanced search skills. Research librarians need to go beyond the basics of search engines or we will become irrelevant.