Google Doesn’t “Get” Librarians…Again.
January 19th, 2007According to CNET, Google is now talking openly with book publishers. Which means one thing. They will probably start a blog for the book publishing industry. Well, they did it for librarians, just in time for ALA Midwinter.
I’m not a fan of the Google Librarian Center for one important reason: The history between the engine and the profession. Before the book scanning project, Google ignored librarians. As soon as they needed something from us (our books), they started the PR push. Take a look at the timeline. Google shows up at their first ALA conference during the exact time when they were being pushed around for scanning books.
Librarians are being used (Brainwashed?) by Google all over again and they don’t even realize it. This is one reason why I’m so excited to do my “Research is Hard” presentation in April to a local library system in NY.
Here’s something else that is interesting and yet more proof that Google doesn’t “get” librarians. Yesterday, when I looked at the Librarian Central Blog, I was a bit perturbed that they used an image of three books in their banner.
Today, I looked again and it’s an image of a library building. Someone must have said something to them and it was changed.
Am I the only one who finds this odd? Isn’t this a big deal? If they understood librarians (and not just cared about us for our books), they would put a “sexier” image up there.
Postscript: Due to the discussions last week on Merediths blog, I should say that my opinion is my own and may or may not be different than those of my publisher and/or employer.