[WEB4LIB] Search engines and positronic brains

[David Merchant]

I must admit that Northern Light is my favorite search engine.  I do like
the folders, often, not always, but often they help quite a bit.

>But I'm more sanguine about the
>prospects of search engine interfaces that can do reasonably good jobs at
>eliciting the user's <italic>real</italic> question in a few steps. 

I don't doubt that search engines can do reasonable good jobs for average
questions. 

>Granted, search engines make silly mistakes some times... but then again,
>they respond to queries without the advantage a reference librarian has,
>of responding to questions in the poser's context.  Is the question from
>a 7-year old or an adult?  Is the query 'Depression' posed in a
>Psychology department library, or at a World Bank library?  

I'm glad to see a search engine company not think that they will do away
with professional information specialists.  

TTFN,
David
Systems Librarian, Louisiana Tech University  <www.latech.edu/tech/library/>
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