[Libs-Or] NYT on Librarians

[David Hutchison]

Maybe it's all how much you trust the New York Times. . .I took a moment
to google "Ross Perot political party" and, after Google politely
corrected my typo, I was two clicks away from the "American Reform
Party" home page, which included the address (postal and e-mail) and
phone number of the current Chairman and Communications Chair.  I didn't
need World Book to answer this question, I'm afraid, and I had an answer
within a minute.  Of couse, "Who knows if it would be right?" would
require some follow up to the phone numbers on the page.  Or you could
click on the second Google link which leads to a CNN timeline for the
Reform Party.  Is CNN as reliable as Ms. Tuckerman's World Book?  If
you're still not sure, you could click on the sixth entry on Google's
search results--that links to an article from a free version of
Encyclopedia Britannica, surely as reliable as World Book.

>From the NY Times article:  ". . .In addition, some sites had not been
updated recently, which was
relevant because some grebes are endangered. So Mr. Thompson turned
to one of the library's databases, Ebsco Animals, which gave him a
picture and detailed information on the birds."

I typed in "grebes" (without the "") in Google.  What is it that Joe
Thompson didn't like about the very first link on Google?  It's signed. 
The author of the article provides several good pictures, an article,
and  a list of literature cited.  The author of the article is the
author of a book sponsored by the Monterey Peninsula Audubon Society. 
The page is dated April 1999.  I checked EBSCO animals:  one picture,
unsigned article, no date.  
 
The moral of this New York Times story for me?  Don't use these
examples if you're trying to justify your existence.

>>> "Wyma Rogers" <wyma at newportlibrary.org> 02/06/04 09:06AM >>>
>From Jenna Freedman:


If the New York Times says it, it must be true:

SECTION: Section G; Page 5; Column 1; Circuits
HEADLINE: When a Search Engine Isn't Enough, Call a Librarian
BYLINE:  By JEFFREY SELINGO

BODY:
KRIS TUCKERMAN, a reference librarian at the Rockville Regional
Library in Washington's Maryland suburbs, was answering questions
from users of the library's live Internet chat service recently when
a inquiry arrived about Ross Perot.

"What's the name of the party that Ross Perot established?" a user
wanted to know.

Ms. Tuckerman checked the Internet for a biography of Mr. Perot.
Then she quickly switched to an electronic database of biographies
to which the library subscribes. But even after scrolling through
several screens of text, she was unable to come up with a
satisfactory answer.

So she turned to a rotating bookshelf next to her desk and selected
a volume of the World Book Encyclopedia. "Sometimes the
old-fashioned sources work the best," she said. Within a few minutes
she found the answer in the encyclopedia: the Reform Party.

In all, answering the question took nearly 10 minutes, partly
because of the back-and-forth exchange over the Internet chat
service. "Maybe they could have found the answer faster on Google,
but who knows if it would be right?" Ms. Tuckerman said. "It's not
that I don't like Google, but we're the information experts."

For generations, reference librarians have been known as the source
for answers to perplexing questions on almost any subject. In recent
years libraries found other means for answering questions, offering
reference services over the telephone, by e-mail, and more recently,
through 24-hour Internet chat services.

Still, with a widespread public expectation that answers can be
found almost instantly by typing a few words into an Internet search
engine, librarians increasingly find themselves on the sidelines in
the question-answering business. So they are slowly warming to the
idea that they must educate the public about ways to sort through
the mountain of available information.

"When Google doesn't work, most people don't have a plan B," said
Joe Janes, an associate professor in the Information School at the
University of Washington in Seattle, who is teaching a course on
Google this quarter. "Librarians have lots of plan B's. We know when
to go to a book, when to call someone, even when to go to Google."

While librarians often use search engines themselves, some say that
the public has become too reliant on Web searches, which may not be
the appropriate way to find what they need. For instance, Google is
a fine place to search for something specific, like biographical
information. But for general information, say on literature or
oceanography, sites that list categories are much better, like
Yahoo, or Web sites favored by librarians, like the Librarians'
Index to the Internet, lii.org, and the Internet Public Library,
www.ipl.org.

What is more, few people scrutinize the information they find on the
Web. A study in 2002 by Google found that 85 percent of
search-engine users examine only the first page of results. On the
other hand, librarians say they often use Google's advanced search
features, asking it, for example, to search only pages that have
been updated in the last three months, or just nonprofit or
educational sites, which they find are sometimes more reliable than
commercial sites.

"People forget that there's no filter on the Web," said Nina Fried,
the head of general reference at the Cleveland Public Library.
"Everything you see on the library shelf has gone through a
tremendous filtering process. Publishers don't just publish
anything. Libraries don't carry just any old book."

In addition, many libraries subscribe to dozens of databases on
various subjects, none of which are available free on the Web, said
Harriet Shalat, a reference librarian at the New York Public
Library.

"People think if it's not on the Internet, it doesn't exist," Ms.
Shalat said. "I always get questions that begin 'Can you help me
find this on the Internet?"'

At the Baltimore County Public Library, Joe Thompson, a librarian
who also oversees the state's live-chat service, said he recently
had a question about grebes that he first tried to answer by using
the Web. He found several sites about the birds, but he could not
easily verify the source of their information.

In addition, some sites had not been updated recently, which was
relevant because some grebes are endangered. So Mr. Thompson turned
to one of the library's databases, Ebsco Animals, which gave him a
picture and detailed information on the birds.

"Good information still costs money, and people forget that," Mr.
Thompson said.

Librarians fear that people are too trusting of the Web,
particularly for health and corporate information, areas in which
some libraries say they have been receiving fewer inquiries in
recent years. In both fields, the accuracy of the information often
depends on its source. In New York and at many other libraries,
cardholders can gain access to subscriber-only databases --
including popular ones like Medline Plus for medical information and
Gale for business resources -- from a remote location.

Another service that librarians provide is one they say most patrons
searching on the Internet need: the ability to refine a question.
Through an interview process, librarians try to sharpen the way a
question is phrased to yield a better response. That step can save a
lot of time, Mr. Janes said.

"If I type a single word, like architecture. into Google, it's going
to give me a mess," he said. "I don't need information at that stage
-- I just need help defining my search."

One benefit of the popularity of Google searches, librarians say, is
that they spend less time answering quick-reference questions, like,
"How many feet are in a kilometer?" That leaves more time to spend
on harder questions.

But unless librarians can convince people that their local library
has an edge on Google, communities under pressure to cut costs may
have an easy time reducing the library's budget. After all, Mr.
Janes said, the politicians "will think, 'That library is nice, but
we can cut them back because everything is on the Internet."'

GRAPHIC: Photo: READY REFERENCE -- Kris Tuckerman uses books and Web
sites to answer questions at the Rockville Regional Library in
Maryland. (Photo by Linda Spillers forThe New York Times)

LOAD-DATE: February 5, 2004



-- 
Jenna Freedman, MLIS
Coordinator of Reference Services
Barnard College Library
3009 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
212.854.4615
212.854.3766 fax
jfreedma at barnard.edu 
ALA Councilor-at-Large