says a colleague of mine (although I suspect he nicked it from somewhere)
Well Mr H, you are wrong! Google is my friend. How else do you explain a recent visitor being directed to this site after a Google search for "inspirational librarians"??
5 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Hmm...maybe not my best friend but a pretty good one. I've just used a number of library related sites to search for some information on Jack Welch with no joy. Google however pointed me in the right direction and heavens above Wikipedia provided me with a very informative article.
I am not sure if this is the best place to post this but the Google / information link reminded me about a book given to me at Christmas. It was "The book of general ignorance" and is based on the T.V series QI hosted by Stephen Fry. It highlights a lot of the misconceptions we seem to pick up and file away as fact as we progress through life. The book is great to pick up and dip into and makes you realise how much you don't know. There are some really odd and useless facts in there such as "What were George Washington's false teeth made from?" Mostly hippopotamus allegedly! Read it to find out more...great fun.
I really like Google and use it a lot, but there are limitations people just don't think of...
1) Google is NOT the internet. Massive as the coverage is, there's still a lot more out there. try a couple of other search engines, you may be surprised at what you find! 2) Remember, there is NO quality control on the results - its great for a quick & shallow overview, but about as trustworthy as the opinion of 'the bloke in the pub' without further work.
Librarians >> Google any day if you really want to rely on the answer
Well said - Google is great if you understand its limitations. It also depends on how important that piece on information is. If you really need the right answer ensure that you check more than one source and compare the results.
By the way 'the bloke in my pub' is very knowledgeable but you have to ask any questions before 9.00 p.m. After this his search engine starts to use fuzzy logic!
It is difficult to break the Google habit and I do usually go to Google first. It's worth forcing yourself to try some other search engines from time to time just to see how different the results can be! I recommend Phil Bradley's page on search and Karen Blakeman's blog for ideas on search engines to try. Trovando is a very interesting tool for searching lots of different engines and comparing the results - worth a look!
5 comments:
Hmm...maybe not my best friend but a pretty good one. I've just used a number of library related sites to search for some information on Jack Welch with no joy. Google however pointed me in the right direction and heavens above Wikipedia provided me with a very informative article.
I am not sure if this is the best place to post this but the Google / information link reminded me about a book given to me at Christmas. It was "The book of general ignorance" and is based on the T.V series QI hosted by Stephen Fry. It highlights a lot of the misconceptions we seem to pick up and file away as fact as we progress through life. The book is great to pick up and dip into and makes you realise how much you don't know. There are some really odd and useless facts in there such as "What were George Washington's false teeth made from?" Mostly hippopotamus allegedly! Read it to find out more...great fun.
I really like Google and use it a lot, but there are limitations people just don't think of...
1) Google is NOT the internet. Massive as the coverage is, there's still a lot more out there. try a couple of other search engines, you may be surprised at what you find!
2) Remember, there is NO quality control on the results - its great for a quick & shallow overview, but about as trustworthy as the opinion of 'the bloke in the pub' without further work.
Librarians >> Google any day if you really want to rely on the answer
Well said - Google is great if you understand its limitations. It also depends on how important that piece on information is. If you really need the right answer ensure that you check more than one source and compare the results.
By the way 'the bloke in my pub' is very knowledgeable but you have to ask any questions before 9.00 p.m. After this his search engine starts to use fuzzy logic!
It is difficult to break the Google habit and I do usually go to Google first. It's worth forcing yourself to try some other search engines from time to time just to see how different the results can be! I recommend Phil Bradley's page on search and Karen Blakeman's blog for ideas on search engines to try. Trovando is a very interesting tool for searching lots of different engines and comparing the results - worth a look!
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