When a Search Engine Isn't Enough, Call a Librarian

contributed by Michael G. at 12:45 PM on February 05, 2004.

An article in today's NY Times champions the role of librarian in an age of instant access to information on the internet.

When Google doesn't work, most people don't have a plan B," said Joe Janes, an associate professor in the Information School at the University of Washington in Seattle, who is teaching a course on Google this quarter. "Librarians have lots of plan B's. We know when to go to a book, when to call someone, even when to go to Google."

On interesting side effect to the prominence of Google, says the article, is that librarians spend less time answering quick-reference questions, and are are then able to spend more time to spend with petrons on the difficult questions.

| Categorized in: Form: News , Library: Public , Process: Reference