Re: Recent Google Announcements

["David P. Dillard" <jwne@astro.ocis.temple.edu>]

There are quite a few interesting avenues to explore that tie in with the
thinking and questioning that this post initiates.  Here are a few
observations I would like to make.

First the role of librarians is not generally publication, but rather that
of organizing and collecting publications among other roles and that of
then providing services that help end users find in the publications the
information or knowledge that they require. In the most recent times, open
access movements and digitization projects are indeed starting to create a
new role for many libraries as that of publishers or creators of online
content collections. Nevertheless, creation of access to a huge group of
publications on a much wider and indeed a worldwide scale would seem to
create more work in their traditional roles, rather than less for
librarians.

The very limitations of Google searching capabilities in such a huge full
text bottomless vat of information would seem to necessitate tremendous
searching skill and work to find content pertinent to a client's need in
this bottomless galaxy of information that is in the process of being
created.  Hence, from all of the material in the book and other online
collections that is full text and that is also public domain, there may be
projects from databanks with heartier software that enable multi-step
searching, variable distance proximity searching and other sophisticated
search capabilities to create more powerful and searchable databases for
this kind of database content.  Indeed, the owners of FirstSearch and
WorldCat already have a relationship with Google and in particular the
Google Scholar program.  This could and may be built upon.  Google may
also develop a more powerful search interface as well.

Google so far as I have heard in the "print" project to put 15 million
books online full text has agreements with only five libraries.
Competitors like Yahoo and Microsoft may not be willing to sit back on the
sidelines and admire Google's handiwork from a passive quiessant distance.
Indeed competitors to Google may go out and recruit other major libraries
and archives and carve out competitive projects from full text online free
access content collections that are not copyright protected through
contracts with these other libraries and collections of publications and
documents.

A huge collection of full text materials requires much more precise
searching capability than a finite index of content that has only subject
headings and citations.  Finding the coincidence of two words in a book of
several thousand pages will be close to useless with all but the most
specialized word combinations.  If search tools are weak or erratic in a
universe of words, the searches conducted in them may usually produce low
relevancy results and huge numbers of hits.  It is one thing to produce a
tremendous body of content.  It is quite another to be able to create the
software that will facilitate finding specific information from that
resource effectively with a reliable and powerful software.

Curious About Search Results
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Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@astro.temple.edu
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World Business Community Advisor
<http://www.WorldBusinessCommunity.org>

====================================================

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Joseph Esposito wrote:

> I would be interested to know what people are thinking about the recent
> Google announcements (Google Scholar, Google Print, etc.) and their impact
> on the business of academic librarianship.  If there were a list called
> "the meaning of Google," I would like to be on it.  Speculation appears to
> be all over the place (what exactly is Google planning to do?  How will
> this fit into emerging metadata schemes?  Will Google become the
> "universal interface" for all research?  Is metasearch dead?  Will
> enabling data harvesting by Google become a priority for publishers, and
> if so, how wiil this affect the libraries that license content?).  There
> appears to be a great deal to learn about this.  As they say at Starbucks,
> make it a vente.
>
> Joe Esposito