[Web4lib] Interesting Web/Library 2.0 data (wasparticpationSkillsfor Library 2.0 Leaders)

[Ron Peterson]

I agree with Will that we aren't in competition with Google, but I do think a key service that libraries have offered, connecting users to information, is a key part of what Google, and other similar services do.  The difference lies in the business of Google, to generate revenue by driving users to their clients, who want to sell them things generally.  Whereas, the business of libraries is helping their users meet their own goals through providing them with information, instruction, licensed content, physical space, and many other things.  We are not competing with them for funding or clients.  This false competition between Google and Libraries causes me concern because it distracts us from the things we should be focused on (serving the needs of our users) and it feeds into the idea that still lingers out there of "why do we need a library when we have Google."  If we don't know how we are different from Google, how can we expect our users or our parent institutions to
 know.

----- Original Message ----
From: Will Kurt <wkurt at bbn.com>
To: Mark Costa <markrcosta at gmail.com>; Casey Bisson <cbisson at plymouth.edu>
Cc: web4lib at webjunction.org
Sent: Wednesday, May 9, 2007 10:59:06 AM
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Interesting Web/Library 2.0 data (wasparticpationSkillsfor Library 2.0 Leaders)

At 12:32 PM 5/8/2007, Mark Costa wrote:
>technology has relegated what we do to a niche market. We no
>longer serve "society's needs" in general, because someone else found out
>how do to it much more cost effectively than us.

I'm always confused with all the libraries vs. Google talk. What 
service does a library provide that Google's services overlap 
with?  Google simply categorizes websites, and maybe with Google 
scholar we can also say abstracts and citations of scholarly 
publications, but this is never what libraries did anyway.   Google's 
other areas of service are advertising and developing 
web-applications which replace desktop applications.  These certainly 
don't overlap with the library domain.

Many of the key services that libraries provide are not even 
something that Google could emulate: physical space, research 
instruction, document delivery, etc.  Our catalog, being the closest 
thing to what Google does, deals with a very different set of data 
which is neither the heart of the library nor the library's website.

Can we learn from Google? Certainly, and one of the thing we can 
learn is that simplified interfaces tend to work better.  I work in a 
research environment in which there are very few non-Master's/Ph.D 
staff, but in redesigning our OPAC I borrowed heavily from Google 
because it's easier to use, and more familiar for all of our users.

Any website that's designed for a low-skill user will still be a 
better experience even for more experienced users.  The classic 
example I found had to do with literacy: low-literacy readers cannot 
skim text, period.  So if they have to use the scroll bar at all, 
they will loose their place.  But it turns out that if you design a 
web-site for low literacy users it's also much easier for 
high-literacy users to use.

Making a website that's geared towards the undergraduate level of 
experience will also make the site easier to navigate and utilize for 
the more experienced user.

--Will

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