LibraryTechtonics

this article is making the rounds on librarian blogs everywhere:

Old Search Engine, the Library, Tries to Fit Into a Google World
[c/o the NYT c/o the Ocala Star-Banner 21 jun '04]

this debate has been the bane of the librarian’s existence for at *least* the past two years: will the internet replace the library, and will search engines replace the librarian?

it is interesting to me that the article notes that it’s only recently that librarians have finally stopped fighting the “Google trend” and begun really embracing it to try to incorporate it into library services. it’s funny, because i’ve seen reference desk librarians go straight to Google to answer a question, so i’m not sure that there’s that much of a fight happening everywhere. even more interesting is the fact that you can feel librarianship changing when the librarians in the field are struggling to accept what schools are teaching as matter of fact, including online searching. my last semester at gslis i took and entire class on online information services, which covered everything from searching DIALOG to how search engines work and how to finesse them to your needs. and really, to find accurate, authoritative information quickly, you really need to finesse these tools.

granted, most patrons mentioned in this article are basically looking for articles and papers. and, well, if you put a name into a search engine, or a title, you might actually be able to find the article no problem on the first try. but there are articles and papers that are right in front of you on the web, but without the right search, you can’t see them. or, you can spend 20 mins trying to google something that you can find in a library database in 2 mins, if you know where to look. and not all information can be found as quickly and easily online, so just because you don’t find it on the first try in the first 10 hits doesn’t mean it’s not out there.

in my mind, there are multiple issues here. while there are technology competencies for librarians being developed, they need to not only include education and at least experimental adoption of up-and-coming technologies, they also need to be somehow *implemented* with librarians. incentives should be offered to librarians who seek to meet the standards put forth in competencies. that means libraries really need to start funding their librarians and para-pro staff for professional development, or at least offering some sort of trade for upgrades in learning. and i’m sure i’m preaching to the choir to all my librarian readers, but i don’t think the rest of the world really knows it.

and the fact that the rest of the world is predominantly ignorant to what we do for a living (starting with “you need a degree to be a librarian?”), the next thing on the agenda is to take the librarians who are meeting the standards of competencies and get them out doing information and *profession* literacy. we need to embrace the web thing, embrace the searching thing, let patrons know we’re doing, and teach them do what their already doing *better*.

i know, i know. librarianship is slow to change. people are afraid of technology. budgets are tight and evil. we’re librarians for crying out loud, there needs to be a way to share resources with each other (which we do a lot anyway on listservs and at conferences) to make our skills and importance known to the people outside our own little librarianship world.

how to do it? i dunno yet. i’m working on that. i think it’ll include going to conferences that aren’t just librarian conferences to find out what the rest of the world is doing, and let them know how we can help. and/or being on local government committees and boards and showing them what we can do. and stuff.

all i know is that this librarian vs. Google argument has gone on long enough. it’s time to do something, and make the action curve steeper. adoption and integration of search technology is a good start, i just wish we hadn’t started so late…

Tags: librarianship, technology