Wednesday, 17 September 2008

Beyond Google....

In the 22 August - 4 September 2008 edition of Gazette from CILIP there was a little piece on how academic library and information professionals can educate students about searching beyond Google.

I ordered a DVD from University of Brighton as we do not have access to YouTube here at work (!) Had a look at it the other day, hmm not really for me/us here. As it said on the description it offers advice on developing training sessions, e.g. make sure you have eye contact, make sure you set up this and this.

But I am just pleased I had a chance to look at it and it just makes me more aware of how important it is not to think of Google as a universal library catalogue, I have learnt that that is far from the truth. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Google as a brand as anyone else does (after all it is the most loved brand according Marketing's annual league table), I love the fun of Google, the colours, their new ideas (Google Labs), the changing banners (Which brand do you know of that changes its looks almost every week, successfully?) but because I have now realised that for information retrieval purposes Google is not a solution, but merely a tool out of thousands of tools, I am looking at Google with new pair of glasses (pardon my poor translation of a Danish phrase).

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