Yes, I Answer.
Jay typed:
I don’t think she understands what I meant, however. I wasn’t saying that Google Answers could be gateway drug to get people hooked on librarians. I was saying that Google Answers is a good prototype
of a better way of interacting with librarians, one that could be co-opted by librarians or recreated by them.
Jay’s right: I didn’t understand what he meant. I didn’t think he was saying Google Answers is a way to get people hooked on librarians at all. I didn’t understand how expanding the Google Answers program would promote
librarians. Google Answers competes directly with librarians, so I wasn’t sure what Jay was thinking when he typed his initial comment:
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.
Jay’s idea of using Google Answers as a model is an interesting one, but I don’t think it’s exactly a new one. As I typed below, Google Answers offers services many libraries offer. Some librarians (like me) provide virtual/distance reference services. Some libraries have chat services (I recently learned of one at the Library of Congress. I have the capability to chat, but I haven’t exactly used it before in the line of my work.) Some libraries have offered these services longer than Google Answers has been around. (I think I was doing e-mail reference before Google was a search engine.)
I don’t think Jay is stupid or ignorant for not knowing about these services. Like Gary Price
explained, libraries don’t market their services very well. Jay may not know about the services because librarians and libraries have not done enough to inform their clients of options regarding reference assistance. Also, these kinds of services are still new enough in the library world that Jay’s local libraries may not offer them.
I also think there’s a difference between how people use technology to communicate now and how it was used even ten years ago that influences how librarians interact with patrons. As people become more accustomed to using these newer technologies, the way they are used in the workplace (and libraries) is going to change. E-mail and chat reference services may become more popular.
One difference between what I’m typing and what Jay’s thinking is the scale of the competition, his “one URL” idea. I’m thinking of it in small, local terms, which is essentially what exists now. Jay’s thinking of it on a grander scale. Something like a group of librarians coming together to offer their services in a joint project. (Help me out here someone. Isn’t there already a project like what Jay’s talking about out there? I think I remember reading that there’s something like this particularly for academic libraries. It’s something that spans a few time zones because I remember someone talking about how people can finally get reference assistance at 2 am or something like that because it isn’t necessarily 2 am where the librarian is at the reference desk.)
Jay does know at least one person who has used Google Answers. He just hasn’t read that far in his aggregator yet or doesn’t realize it. (No, it isn’t me.)
Jay writes:
People writing newspaper articles use Google, then Librarians; not Google then Google Answers.
The ideal situation, as Gary e-mailed me today, would be for journalists to consult a librarian before heading for Google. (For simple searches, I’m happy for my clients to go out on their own. I’m always available if they get stuck.) In reality, many journalists may use librarians because some news organizations have news librarians and using one is very convenient, efficient, and free. (There are many other factors I could elaborate on, like deadlines, but this blog post is already too long and rambling.) There probably are journalists out there who have used Google Answers and similar services in their research. There are freelance researchers, too.
Yes, my services are valuable. Thank you for recognizing that, Jay. Yes, I would *love* for people to pay me money for answering questions. (That’s one reason why I have the job I have. I am paid to answer questions. It’s just not exactly on a pay-as-you-go basis.)
(Jay, how much are you willing to pay me for this blog post?) There are many setups where corporate librarians charge clients for services. I don’t see an easy way to apply that revenue model to my current job and I don’t think it’s practical for me to do so.
The whole taxes and “getting libraries off government welfare” discussion is for another time.
I agree with Jay about credentials. There are many different librarians with many different specialties. People don’t always think about or realize that. I’m a news librarian. There are medical librarians, business librarians, legal librarians, art librarians, etc., etc. If someone asks a legal question to a public librarian and a law librarian, she might get different answers just because of the librarians’ expertise and resources available to them. The person who
I know who has used Google Answers before indicated that there used to be several medical librarians working for the service, so he used to ask medical questions there because he knew he could tap their expertise.
Jay observes:
There is one URL for Google Answers. There is an effectively innumerable number of Librarian’s phone numbers, all of which I don’t know.
Very, very true and a good point. Well, Jay, my phone number is … not something I want to post on my blog.
I think some librarians don’t want to work with Google Answers because they see Google as direct competition to their institutions. Some librarians have worked and do work for Google. But I think many information professionals realize it’s not a job that really pays well enough for them to earn a living. Look at Mike’s question: $20 for something that looks like it could take more than 4 or 5 hours of work. People often don’t realize the cost of what they’re asking for and some people will try to get something for nothing. (I don’t mean to knock Mike here.) If they think someone will answer the question for $2.50, why offer to pay more than that?
(For the record, I am going to work on answering Mike’s inquiry. He and I had an e-mail exchange about that. Unfortunately, this week is incredibly hectic, so I don’t know when I’ll have time to really
work on it, but he knows I’ve bitten and seems willing to wait.)
Addendum 2/11: MassAnswers is a collaborative project between many libraries in Massachusetts to provide 24/7 reference assistance via online chat. 24/7 Reference is a company specializing in products to assist librarians with the technical side of offering chat and other online reference services.
v’s and Garrett’s comments below contain other resources of interest, too.
Addendum 2/18: I sent Mike the work I did on his inquiry this evening. I’m waiting for his reaction. I’ll blog more about it after I have his blessing to do so.
Addendum 2/20: I blogged a summary of what I sent Mike.
Addendum 2/27: Mike paid me for responding to his inquiry.
February 10th, 2004 at 10:08 am
I think that the consortium that you were trying to remember is 24/7 Reference. (Someone please correct me if I am wrong). The Teaching Librarian has an index of chat reference services that may be useful to anyone interested in this subject. Please note, however, that since this site seems to have been last updated during the summer, it may be missing some services that have started since then.
To add my $0.02 on this issue, I would like to say that Google Answers and library reference services are very different things. Yes, both can get a researcher the answer s/he wants, but a reference librarian (ideally) will also teach/show the researcher strategies for finding information in the future. A person working for a paid service may not be as committed to this since if users are empowered to find information on their own, they will not need to pay for information in the future…Maybe that is where librarians went wrong
.
February 10th, 2004 at 3:11 pm
Both j and vernica have responded well to je’s points… Jessamyn West used to work for Google Answers and her article about it is quite illuminating; see: “http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jan03/west.shtml”