2007-07-24
The role of Digital Libraries in the Age of Google
The dominance of search engines for discovering resources is unlikely to diminish substantially in the future, but libraries can increase their participation in the online world and the search engine revolution.
Search encompasses nearly everything that users want to do online. As such we believe search and search engines have become the new portals. (Piper Jaffray)
OCLC is building a platform, WorldCat.org, to make it easy for libraries, collectively and individually, to deliver their services to the network and build a unified, high-value consumer presence on the Web. WorldCat.org integrates library content and services with Web search engines, Internet booksellers, online bibliographies and commercial publishers. It also provides a permanent Web page dedicated solely to searching the worlds libraries and a downloadable search box that anyone can download to a blog or Web site. With WorldCat.org, Web searchers discover library resources in their results lists and move from the Web to their local libraries. And OCLC members become more visible and their collections and eServices more accessible from sites where many people start their search for information.
Tennant notes that despite the fact people start at search engines, that does not mean they end there. We find that although many of our students begin with Google, they realize the benefit of commercial databases and they will often end there. What libraries need to do is to create search services tailored to the particular needs of our clientele. If we understand their needs well enough, and do a good enough job in meeting those needs, they will come. All we need to do is effectively solve a problem that people care about.
Battelle says that, simply put, librarians need to become the experts in using the tools we all use to gather information.Experts will always be in demand by the public. This means become experts in search. The importance of understanding search and its cultural ramifications cannot be understated, he says. Search is no longer a stand-alone application, a useful but impersonal
tool for finding something on a new medium called the World Wide Web. Increasingly search is our mechanism for how we understand ourselves, our world and our place within it. Its how we navigate the one infinite resource that drives human culture: knowledge. Perfect searchevery single possible bit of information at our fingertips, perfectly contextualized, perfectly personalized may never be realized. But the journey to find out if it just might be is certainly going to be fun.
Libraries will be a part of the journey.
Details: http://www.oclc.org
OCLC is building a platform, WorldCat.org, to make it easy for libraries, collectively and individually, to deliver their services to the network and build a unified, high-value consumer presence on the Web. WorldCat.org integrates library content and services with Web search engines, Internet booksellers, online bibliographies and commercial publishers. It also provides a permanent Web page dedicated solely to searching the worlds libraries and a downloadable search box that anyone can download to a blog or Web site. With WorldCat.org, Web searchers discover library resources in their results lists and move from the Web to their local libraries. And OCLC members become more visible and their collections and eServices more accessible from sites where many people start their search for information.
Tennant notes that despite the fact people start at search engines, that does not mean they end there. We find that although many of our students begin with Google, they realize the benefit of commercial databases and they will often end there. What libraries need to do is to create search services tailored to the particular needs of our clientele. If we understand their needs well enough, and do a good enough job in meeting those needs, they will come. All we need to do is effectively solve a problem that people care about.
Battelle says that, simply put, librarians need to become the experts in using the tools we all use to gather information.Experts will always be in demand by the public. This means become experts in search. The importance of understanding search and its cultural ramifications cannot be understated, he says. Search is no longer a stand-alone application, a useful but impersonal
tool for finding something on a new medium called the World Wide Web. Increasingly search is our mechanism for how we understand ourselves, our world and our place within it. Its how we navigate the one infinite resource that drives human culture: knowledge. Perfect searchevery single possible bit of information at our fingertips, perfectly contextualized, perfectly personalized may never be realized. But the journey to find out if it just might be is certainly going to be fun.
Libraries will be a part of the journey.
Details: http://www.oclc.org
Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) Newsletter April 2007
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