How bad is your googling habit and what does it mean?

What do you mean by Google being 'just' a better librarian? Better than who or what?As a community college librarian, I find that most people, students, community members, and even some faculty, need to be trained on how to search beyond the very basics, how to narrow a search down to eliminate clutter and spurious results, even how to judge whether a given site is a reasonably valid source of information.When doing serious research, Google (or any other search engine) is at best just a start. It is the databases that contain the detailed and reliable information from peer reviewed journals, a relative rarity on the free portion of the internet. That, and actual books that are indexed and referenced.The WWW, of which Google is but one search method, is great for buying and selling, obtaining basic information, and even for spell-checking (hint, hint some members) but the way in which such massive amounts of data are sifted, interpreted, and evaluated as to validity is only as good as the critical thinking skills and, in many cases, subject knowledge of the searcher.But hey, you don't have to take my word for it, just type in something innocuous like the search term 'geologic column' and see how much worthless crap there is on the web.

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

anglagard, as a community college librarian, you are probably an authority on googleology. I certainly don't mean to say Google is the only powerful search engine. Pick anyone you like. I'm only saying that they represent a new form of collective consciousness. The Internet itself is a new form of colective consciousness, comprising information gods who help us find what we are looking for in life. We didn't have that huge advantage back when I was in school. My last degree was in engineering in 1972, and if I wanted to know something about, say, the precise locations of functioning hydrological stations on the Themes, I had to do a bit more than just Google up that info. But, now, instead of taking a librarian twelve hours of work and three weeks of waiting, I can have it an instant with just a few flicks of my fingertips.My OP inquiry was about whether or not this amounts to the appearance of a awesome, new encyclopedic monster or just a better lady at the desk who will try to do cartwheels for you through the archives and get back to you in a month or two.I dare say that my need for you, as a college librarian, has slipped down my list of important resources to have around because of Google and its peers. Once you were absolutely indespensible. Now you are good for making coffee and ordering more 3x5 cards. Or are you really, as you say, more important than the Great Lord Google Himself?”HM

Yes, the WWW does provide convenience, for both of us. Does it then follow that it contains all human knowledge, or even as much knowledge as all libraries put together?The primary problem with the way some approach the WWW is that they see all sites as equally valid as there is no peer review, no vetting as to whether they are true or false. People are not born with an innate knowledge of information literacy or critical thinking skills, these have to be taught. Your inquiry confuses a tool with a profession, indeed even a given person. To me, Google is one tool out of many, that searches the WWW, one source out of many.So when you use the term 'better' that may be true in terms of immediate convenience but is false in terms of comprehensiveness or often even validity. My employers pay me for serving the information needs of my clientle, they could care less what you think as you speak for neither group. Up to your old bad habits, I see. Show us where I said any such thing.

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

anglagard, you are the one who knows what a better librarian means. And you know what computer/Internet technology means in terms of enhancing our access to more information. Maybe Google and its peers mean only more access but not more of a threat to the evolving affairs of humans. Or maybe Google et all. mean something else. Many historians have argued that Gutenberg's printing press set off the Reformation, owing to the explosive nature of shared information. It was that splendid new access to information that was the trouble. And maybe Diderot's Encyclopedia set off the French Revolution, as some have argued. And now we're anxiously anticipating The Singularity and The Law of Accelerating Returns. Google seems to be a vanguard for those thrusts of cybernetic take over.Or am I just dreaming? What does a professional librarian think about this threat of a cyber-social revolution, when the computers collectively know more than the collective human population?”HM

Huh?The computers know?Sorry but computers know nothing. Google knows nothing.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

And humans?

Computers are like books. They can store data. They can do simple tasks like keep lists. But they know nothing.Humans can know things.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You mean to tell me computers don't know how to play chess?Edited by Hoot Mon, : Never heard of "comupters"

If you want to pull your usual games, then fine, enjoy.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

A computer doesn't know how to play chess any more than a Model A knows how to get to Paris. They just accept inputs and follow instructions.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
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COUNT ME IN! Let's hope not

Every human child has to be programmed for the desired output. Ay, Canuckistanian?”HM

Jon, do you suppose we will move closer to God or further away from Him when the Singularity overtakes us and we discover that we're here only for the computers and the cyberlords who gather therein?”HM

No. A human programming another human makes no more sense than a Model A driving another model A.The human psyche is a complex combination of inputs from a vast number of sources. The most you could hope for is to influence the child in the general direction of the "desired output". That's "Eh, Canuck?"

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
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Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

No, they don't. Computers only function in the way the programmer (the actual intelligence behind the computer) tells it to, in an unthinking, mechanical way. It isn't actually devising a stratagem anymore than a calculator is a whiz at mathematics.

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake