Andrea looks at Cantfindongoogle.com a list of failed searches. When people ask me, as they often do “how do librarians stay relevant in the age of Google” I tell them that Google is a very powerful tool that very few people know how to use well. I’ve been reading Tara’s Web Search Garage lately and even I’m learning more about how to massage information out of Google. Sometimes it’s as simple as explaining to the patron that if you’re looking for LTD Consortium, it’s going to be pretty important to use both words. Or maybe telling the patron who is trying to find the Boston Museum of Fine Arts that the key word to include in her search is “Boston.” This is second knowledge to me, and many of us, but it’s not to my patrons. Google is so fast and so useful that I’ve taken to remembering some web pages just by the search terms that I can use to find them, since I can never remember their URLs. I’m also pretty good at ballparking whether some information that I need either can or can NOT be found in Google before I waste a lot of time looking. That’s powerful stuff, and a useful skillset, so it’s good to remember that some people don’t have that mojo, either because they haven’t learned, don’t care, or give up too easily.
Category: ‘puters
e-rate not all it was cracked up to be anyhow
Karen Schneider has a great post summing up some of the major problems with the existing E-rate discount program and why libraries and schools might be better off lobbying for a different solution than reviving this one.
library elf, another weird and neat web tool
Library ELF is a little beta web service that will tell you when your library books are due and send you email reminders to return them. This is, of course, something vendors should be doing, but many aren’t. My only beef? How about offering a plain text email option, or maybe just an RSS feed alert instead? [catalogablog]
e-rate hold up dragging into monthlong mess
A few bad apples may be spoiling the E-Rate program that provides Internet and phone service to a large amount of the country’s schools and libraries. There are tighter spending rules, a lower mandatory contribution from the telcos [thanks FCC!] and possible delays on cash outlays extending into 2006. Now might be a good time to contact your elected official and make sure they are aware of this issue and actively working to resolve it. If E-rate money isn’t forthcoming, what does that mean for CIPA? [thanks rebecca]
how do you learn virtref? here’s a curriculum.
Washington State has a statewide virtual reference project that has an online core competencies training curriculum for virtual reference. Lots of good linked reading and exercises.