j's scratchpad

Jay writes in response to two of my recent posts:

It seems to me that the best way to promote librarians is to work with Google and expand the Google Answers program. Many people don’t know about Google Answers and the services seems ill defined. But a good start.

Promoting Google Answers isn’t a good start for librarians. Google Answers competes directly with librarians and libraries and the services they provide. (Yes, some librarians work for Google Answers, but that’s a different discussion.)

One of the points I think Gary Price makes in his article and many other librarians have made is that Google Answers isn’t doing anything new. Many, many libraries offer services that are very similar to Google Answers–and often for free. It’s just that many library users don’t know about those services. Google has done a good enough job marketing their services that people know they’re available and don’t know about an alternative, so they pay someone to assist them when they very well may be able to get the same or better level of service from their local library/librarian(s).

See, libraries often base a lot of things, like their budget and the number of staff, on statistics. Many libraries count the number of reference questions they get, the number of people who walk through the door, the number and type of materials used, the number of times clients use certain services, etc. Google Answers may divert people from using libraries, which impacts the services librarians provide to their constituents.

Also, Google doesn’t exactly explain the credentials of their Researchers. Their FAQ page says that they might be experts in the field and/or they might be people with good search skills, but their text seems to lean towards people with good searching capabilities over other qualities. How do you know anything about the person who’s going to answer your question? When you ask someone who works in a library for assistance, there’s a certain credential that’s there just by virtue of the fact that the person works for a library. Many librarians will happily tell their clients what their credentials are (”I have a medical degree as well as an MLIS” or “I majored in English in college and earned my MIS after teaching for a few years”). Search skills are important, but they aren’t everything when it comes to answering questions. Knowing something about dealing with people, basic reference sources, how to locate information, and many other things directly related to library and information science is important. (I’m not saying that all librarians everywhere are always better than Google Researchers or that Google Researchers are always going to be worse than a librarian.) There’s just something about knowing who you’re dealing with and what that person’s credentials are that can be important when you’re seeking assistance from him or her.

If the questions the Google Answers people get are anything like the questions I get through the virtual reference services I provide to the public, most of them are very easy questions to answer. Many times, the answer is either readily available on the Web or in a basic reference book, like an encyclopedia or a dictionary. I don’t think the answers to these questions are worth $2.50 to the inquirer in many cases. (Is charging a fee a way to screen out some questions?) Sometimes people just don’t know how to do a Web search to find what they need, where to begin to look for information, or how to go about doing it. Why pay someone at Google Answers when a librarian may be able to provide the same assistance at no charge and perhaps teach someone how to better look for information on their own? I think it’s like Gary wrote: a lot of it is marketing.

Marketing: Okay here goes: why should someone pay Google Answers even $2.50 (their lowest price) when they can contact me or my place of employment for free assistance regarding their question related to the institution I work for? Now, I’m wondering how many questions we’re missing because people don’t realize my office is available to answer inquiries from the public. (Geez, I already get 20-100 e-mails a day from the public that warrant a response. What am I doing?!?)

Perhaps expanding Google Answers is something to avoid.

(I wasn’t going to blog tonight ’cause it’s late, I’m tired, I’m not writing coherently, and I have an early hike tomorrow, but I couldn’t let this go by without saying something (and secretly, I wanted to see if my repaired computer really does work again). If I sound too harsh, I apologize. I don’t mean it that way.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 8th, 2004 at 12:27 am and is filed under Librarianship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.