Here's an article by Thomas Mann, a Reference Librarian, on why Google's keyword search cannot replace cataloging and classification. I couldn't agree more with Mann as he presents three major problems in searching the 15,000,000 digitized books for its Google Print database using keywords and we can always use his example when someone tells us that Google will render us librarians irrelevant.
I'm not much of a Google fan except when I'm looking for some quick facts and when I'm feeling too lazy to walk one floor up the stairs to consult an encyclopedia or dictionary. But when you're faced with 160,000 results for one search query, you'd better put your search term in context. Remember, Google ranks websites according to the most links it has, so chances are the top search results may not be the "it" for your research needs, that is of course if you need more than a definition of a term.
That's why I prefer the clustered search of Vivisimo.
I will be with you to protct you. (Jer 1:9)
No comments:
Post a Comment