Tuesday, April 25, 2006

CIL'06: Search Engines Vs. Libraries: The Role of Librarians on the Internet

Gary Price (a librarian)
  • director of online resources at ask.com
  • yes, there is a role for libs, but we have to speak up, LOUDLY!
  • we can save peeps time, effort and aggravation, but we need to SHOW them...get in their faces...there are bigger and more haystacks out there
  • info literacy is VIP
  • a lot of services we consider "basic" are unknown to many users
  • marketing and branding...tell people...word of mouth..."viral" marketing!
  • SHOW people that libraries and librarians are important
  • become the info "go to" people
  • ask.com
    • crawler-based engine
    • pre-built Q&A model is gone
    • zoom...query refinement
    • image database
    • maps...with driving and walking directions
    • customize stuff on right hand side, or minimize

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