[WEB4LIB] Google Answers questions

[William M. Wines]

On Tue, 21 May 2002, Richard Wiggins wrote:

> In any event, I dunno folks, but I think Google is onto something.

Well, maybe, but in terms of cost to the end-user, in nearly all cases, a
consultation with a reference librarian is free; and I'm not sure how many
people really care if they get footnotes and citations as long as they get
an answer to their question along with a single credible and reliable (and
cited) source.  

What Google is on to (and I'm not dissing them for this by any means) is
another slick way to extract money from people who have money to spend.  I
don't think it's all that important for public libraries to spend a lot of
time worrying about how they can compete with private enterprise.  OTOH, I
think it is very important to spend more time thinking about how we can
reach out to people who don't have $20 to spend finding out about
helipcopter sorties over the Grand Canyon.  

-----------------------------
Bill Wines
Assistant Director
Walled Lake City Library
1499 E. West Maple Rd.
Walled Lake, MI 48390
(248) 624-3772
http://walled-lake.lib.mi.us
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