[WEB4LIB] Re: Google Answers questions

[Robert Tiess]

Richard Wiggins wrote:
> I'm afraid my use of the term "compiled results" may have misled you.  The
> whole premise of Google Answers is: I offer to pay a sum of money for
> someone to go out and research my question anew.  By "compiled results" I
> meant a set of answers (citations and annotations) compiled by the
> researcher in response to the question just posed.
  
Your clarification of is helpful, but, realistically, a researcher, paid or otherwise, might not always go out and research completely "anew," nor might that be necessary; it depends on the nature of the question and answers which might already be "out there" in some form or primary source.


Richard Wiggins wrote:
> Google Answers is not AskJeeves; it is not a set of pathfinders
> or FAQs; it is not a knowledge base.

I'm quite familiar with AskJeeves and wouldn't necessarily call it a true knowledgebase.  It admirably matches keywords embedded in questions with mostly relevant websites, but, without actually knowing its internal parsing algorithms, it's difficult to tell if it's more KB than search engine.  For me it's more of a hybrid KB/search engine, since draws on multiple methods (as described at http://static.wc.ask.com/docs/about/policy.html).

As it exists right now, Google Answers can be considered a public knowledgebase under construction.  It's not searchable, but people can browse specific answers to specific questions, which I'd consider the makings of a KB: https://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html#publiclyviewable

There's nothing I've seen in their FAQ regarding questions "asked and answered," but, if their service takes off, the issue of duplicate questions becomes inevitable.  Does the archive then become searchable?  I think it should.  If ten people ask what is the capital of a certain state, why should nine of those ten pay for an answer when it already has been answered?  (Why any of them should have paid to begin with is a separate issue.) The compilation of answers could lead to a searchable knowledgebase.  Whether that KB also becomes public or yet another pay-per-view resource is yet another issue.


Richard Wiggins wrote:
> Thus if I asked a question concerning the hearbreak of psoriasis or efficacy
> of laser eye surgery, I'd expect the researcher to compile a new list of
> source links at that time.

While you'd expect that (and while that might even be expected of the researcher), the reality of the matter is that, if your question has been satisfactorily answered in an existing resource, the researcher might just give you one hyperlink (which could be a meta level resource), as in "coping resources" for your "heartbreak of psoriasis" example: http://www.psoriasis.org/f350.htm

Scope is something your query determines and you help refine by telling the proxy researcher if you need more or less information.  Specificity of the question predetermines its answer(s).  In-person reference transactions help to immediately resolve misunderstanding and expectations between patron and librarian, while an online reference service in a message board format is not necessarily as immediate.  If speed is considered the edge for paid reference services on the web, clearly that isn't always true.  Understanding, anywhere, takes time.

In the end, no matter how long it takes to research any topic, there's only so much "new" research that can be conducted, even when you're willing to pay for it.  


Richard Wiggins wrote:
> Yes, if the researcher limits him/herself to
> freely-available Web resources, that's not as good as searching commercial
> databases.  But that's a different issue.


It's also a big issue: free web resources only cover so much, and in such cases you might not get what you are willing to pay for.  It only takes one good question to reveal how lacking the web is.  One question involving specific literary criticism, for example, reveals how little the web provides.  I privately and professionally catalog a number of things, including online literary resources, so I'm fairly aware of what's out there and what's not.

Without access to such things as Contemporary Literary Criticism in print or Gale's literary databases, the paid researcher confined to free resources is genuinely limited.  If she or he belongs to a library housing such materials or licensing such databases, information can be unearthed -- if there is incentive for persistence.  Incentive equals money for paid researchers, while at most a good librarian needs is the sense of having helped someone.

A search such as this requires persistence, patience, awareness of and access to "deep" resources:  you often do not find what you need in a single volume of CLC, Twayne, or Bloom  -- perhaps for high school students, but rarely for college students.  Good literary research is rarely so simple.  I say this not only as an information specialist but as a degreed English Literature major.


Richard Wiggins wrote:
> I urge everyone who has commented upon this new elephant based on their own
> conceptions of its trunk and its tail to, at the very least, browse some of
> the asked-and-answered questions online.

I've seen the Q&A, and it's not bad.  I'm not sure I'd have advised people to pay for most of the answers before freely consulting their public libraries.  Some of the questions and answers are funny (e.g. see "What is up?" https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=17336).  Hey, you can even pay to ask  questions already answered at Google's site:
For $4.00:
https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=17423
Free answers at:
https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=apply
https://answers.google.com/answers/researcherguidelines.html


Sure, there's a market for this, but it's not really a "new elephant."  The essence of what Google is doing is not new; its model might be unique, but the idea of paying someone to find something for you isn't.  The success of the service, yet to be determined, might owe more to brand name recognition than to the quality of service.  It's too early to tell.

The thing is that public libraries are always going to have the ultimate advantage over paid services because public libraries are free and superior in too many ways.  And what happens when people realize they don't have to pay for something someone's doing better and for free?  Remember what happened to Netscape Navigator when Internet Explorer became free?  Now that Netscape is free again (through the continued hard work of people at Mozilla.org), history has come full circle and much-needed healthier competition may return.

Everyone ought to have realized the library's powers by now.  Subscription based general reference services cannot compete, in the long term, with free public library resources and services.  We cannot "beat them," nor do we have to "join them" because they will never provide services wholly comparable to ours.  They may appear to come close, but they cannot replicate the complete library experience, the community -- above all, the librarian.  The virtual world just isn't that good.  The trick is getting people to realize that and see the benefits in visiting the library (or at least the library's website).

So where's the competition?  Librarians long dispelled any suggestion they are in competition with the Internet, instead demonstrating the Internet extends a librarian's capabilities and a library's potential service area.  Aside from funding and inner library system "competition" (e.g. circ stats/"busiest library"), I'd say the only real long term competitors libraries have at this point are themselves: libraries decide their destinies.

Failing to raise public awareness of freely available resources and services (online or in-house) indirectly refers patrons to external reference services: this is how we beat ourselves.  While it might seem too commonsensical or silly to implement, a campaign highlighting the many free resources a library offers could easily save patrons a lot of grief and money while attuning communities to what the library actually does and provides.  Far too many people do not know.  Don't ask Jeeves, ask them.

Robert Tiess