Bibliographic Essay

Bibliographic Essay

Selma Dautefendic

Jennifer Gardner

2/22/09

ILS 501 Prof. Kim

Introduction

Searching is the attempt to retrieve valuable information. The growth of the World Wide Web and the digitized world has dramatically impacted this process. The quest for useful information has expanded far beyond the library doors. Gone are the days when an inquiry began with the card catalogue or a flip through the encyclopedia. An increasing amount of content is now available electronically and can be accessed easily from personal workstations. But this new era of information freedom is fraught with challenges for all information seekers. The production of vast quantities of digital information does not ensure quality, and access at our fingertips does not guarantee efficiency. The following essay will discuss how searching is evolving and the library’s role within it.

Searching The Web

Searchers today are confronted with an immense amount of information. The Surface Web, that part of the WorldWide Web which is accessible with conventional crawlers and links, is current estimated to be 1.4billion web pages by the OCLC’s Office of Research Web Characterization Project (cite). This massive amount of information can be accessed with a range of search engines from Google to Yahoo to WebMD which employ different techniques to help locate meaningful results. Each engine and database has different features (like indexes, operators, and ranking methods) which must be understood to maximize recall and precision in searches. Knowledge of these nuances will have a profound impact on the utility of information retrieved.

To get the most out of searching there are many techniques that can be employed. Boolean operators, natural language -, keyword -, subject -, field -, or phrase searching are some of them, but although they seem to be easy to use, user have to know the logic by which these techniques work. Using truncation, proximity, nesting or wildcards can produce better results, but some search engines do not support them. If the user understands the rules of the searching game, he can find what he is looking for. But, if he does not, valuable information can stay “hidden”. This provides opportunity for the librarian to be the expert with power search skills, advanced knowledge and thus higher recall and precision in their searches.

Information Seekers: Their Habits and Expectations

Librarians today must be mindful of trends in user/customer expectations and habits. The digital world has spawned a new breed of patron who has a new set of searching needs and expectations. Simplicity and speed are key priorities as is an increasing amount of independence. It is commonly held that users today can satisfy many of their search needs without the aid of a librarian. A precipitous drop in recorded reference questions supports this theory (cite). “Google now reigns,” claims Markey (Markey, 2007), and many others agree that using Google is easier and more appealing to most than using library catalogs.According to OCLC report, 98 % of the college students prefer to use search engines as their first stop to obtain information, and Google is the most used among search engines. This trend is alarming and is a threat to libraries. Even more devastating is that only 10% of those students who used the library Web site ultimately fulfilled their information needs there (OCLC 2006).

Web searchers users in general do not want to spend too much time searching as it just does not fit today’s lifestyle. They want simple, user-friendly interfaces that will create a personalized experience – as they have come to expect using social networking or shopping on-line.

But despite their increased independence, users also report feeling overwhelmed by the search process. Information overload can lead to patrons needing and seeking advice from experts like librarians to assist them. Overall, the goal of the searcher is finding useful information, not simply getting hundreds of hits. The librarian has the opportunity to offer valuable expertise in this complex world. Information professionals know that there are many different search engines with different search algorithms and protocols, which can yield information not retrieved by Google or novice search strategies.

The Deep Web

Adding an additional layer of complexity to the search process is the Deep Web. According to the search company Bright Planet, it is estimated that about 550 billion documents are hidden from general web search engines in what is often called the Invisible Web, the Deep Web, or the Hidden Web (cite). While the growth of the Public Web is slowing, the Deep Web is thought to be expanding, creating more potential for valuable information retrieval. But traditional search engines cannot retrieve content of the Deep Web because those pages do not exist until they are created dynamically as the result of a specific search - direct query – so most of popular search engines give access to only a small fraction of the content available on the Web as a whole.

Interestingly, m than 95% of Deep Web content is publicly available, and does not require subscriptions or fees. Users only have to know where to search, but they also must understand how to search if they want to get information they need. It is estimated that typical internet user is searching only 0.03% of the information available to him.

How to get the information from the Deep Web?

Much is now being written about resource discovery and access. Bradley (2006) reviews and analyzes new Google services and ponders whether the technology giant has “bright competitors nipping at its heels.” Baksik (2006) provides a thorough overview of the Google Books project and notes that Google and scanned versions of books are here to stay, despite all the intellectual property issues. (Selma, is this only a Deep Web issue? I don’t think so….)

Teaching how to search the Web is actually teaching about search tools. Many users tend to believe that there are tools that can answer all their questions. If they do not get information they want, they usually blame the tool, rather than their decision to use that specific tool (Cohen, 2001). Many users believe that searching, the internet, and the Google are one and the same thing. Google is only one of the search engines, one of the many. Information professionals know that there are many different search engines with different search algorithms, which can yield information not retrieved by Google (Selma,also is this only a Deep Web issue? I don’t think so….)

There is progress being made for Deep Web searches. Federated search shop Deep Web Technologies released in 2008 its latest search portal: Biznar and it has been promoted to be useful to reference librarians as well as to library patrons. Portal retrieves content across business research, news articles, government information, and blog posts (INFOTECH 2008). CongooNetPass, a free utility that is available at enable user to search and read a limited number of documents from 35 popular sites that require subscription – completely free. User can make from 4 to 15 visits per month, depending on a site, and once the limit had been exceeded, user will be prompted to subscribe to the service (PC World 2007).

Developments to Improve Searches

As stated previously, searching is about finding valuable information. Several new developments seek to help improve the location of more usable information.

One way to improve information retrieval is to ensure it is optimally indexed or tagged at the source. More and more websites are employing metadata to identify keywords, authors, and content details. But as with other technologies discussed, there is a lack of consistency in these techniques and so initiatives like Dublin Core seek to standardize this method. (cite) . Also, in the library environment specifically, tagging can be employed as an interactive technique to improve findability by enabling the user himself to tag the library collection with keywords. Essentially the user is participating in cataloguing to facilitate better future searches by himself and others. “Social tagging” sometimes deviates from findability goals as it seeks to simply see what items other feel are interesting or noteworthy.

To satisfy user desire for speed and simplicity progress with interfaces is being made. Users may relate to database interface style differently depending on their individual cognitive style. Therefore new interfaces based on visual , textual or experiential formats are being developed to improve the ability of users to use engines and understand what is presented to them. For example, more library database vendors like EBSCOhost now have interfaces with Visual Search tab that can be of great benefit to users (Fagan, 2006).

Another important development is federated searching. These tools can simplify the search process for users by offering this technology to broadcast a single search to multiple electronic sources (Herrera, 2007). Also known as metasearch or parallel search, this powerful tool enables the searcher to explore more material from the library catalog and beyond very quickly and can return results in a consistent format. Many libraries are developing their own metasearch tools but private companies are also working on these resources. However, not all libraries offer this technology and some argue that it waters down the advanced tools of some native database specific searching and promotes poor search habits. These simplified interfaces yielding broader results may not be an improvement over more targeted approach. “Federated systems remain controversial because they focus on what we think users want, at the expense of functionality, precision, and finesse” (Tenopir, 2007).

Another notable trend in library searching is virtual reference – Information seekers do not need to come to the library to initiate a search, but they still may need our help remotely. This medium enables reference services in a virtual environment through chat, email, instant messaging or email. Patrons may initiate a search this way or a librarian could prompt patrons mid search and then assist remotely. More common services like Ask a Librarian are intended for shorter more general queries and probably cannot cope with more extensive inquiries such as those encountered in an academic library. Overall, the quality of these services has been hotly debated and final effectiveness is unproven.

Other Library Specific Issues

There are some other factors influencing the role of the library in today’s search world. Importantly, libraries seem to lack visibility. According to the OCLC report many users do not equate libraries with the web (OCLC, 2005). Librarians must figure out how to better make our services and advantages known. Union catalogs like WorldCat aggregate library collections and promise better exposure. Through partnerships with search engines they can help ensure library content turns up in more searches. Also they can deliver more visits to library web pages and thus library services.

The trend towards Open Access will also influence the library’s role. Currently many library’s subscribe to private databases like Dialog/Proquest,EBSCO and Wilsonand other. These databeses remain unavailable to most individual users. However, the trend towards Open Accesscontent is making scholarly, peer-reviewed articles available free of charge to anyone over the World Wide Web. The term also can include self archived articles by the author. The growth of this type of content is staggering with double digit increases estimated annually and over 5 million items included in an Open Archives Initiative (OAIster) search in 2005 (Morrison, 2006). Tools like Google Scholar provide free access to scholarly resources as well as institutional repositories like OPAC and even has citation and relevancy features. Google Scholar and Open Access materials can now be an important part of librarians’ repertoire of information services but also serve to further empower independent users outside the library’s domain. In addition, the rise of Open Access materials may alleviate some of the burden of subscription prices for libraries.

Libraries vs. World Wide Web

The Internet is definitely not the magical guru like information problem solver many people would like to believe it is. It is an important phenomenon in its own right, mainly serving as a data communication channel, but it is poorly suited for information retrieval (Reuser, 2008). The commitment to finding and preserving the human experience is the role of library and librarian. The challenges to continue the same commitment today are even greater.

Have librarians waited too long to respond to search engines? May be. Is it too late? Never. Libraries are, although sometimes reluctantly, responding. Google, Google Scholar, and Google Book are open WorldCat partner sites that are now or soon will be providing access to WorldCat records. Google Book Search includes “Find this book in the library”, and the advanced Book search has also the option to limit a search to library catalogs with access to the WorldCat web record for each item (Brenner, 2008).

Libraries need to provide attractive and exciting discovery tool to draw patrons to the valuable resources in their catalogs. They should not compete with WWW, or any search engine, but try to incorporate things that users like about search engines into their own Web catalogs and portals. Skilled librarians – with all the retrieval methods they learned about and their knowledge of databases, conventional and virtual libraries – can outperform the internet in many occasions.And, anyway, Internet does not contain all the information. There is still a lot to discover within the walls of the library.

Conclusions: - (I think this can combined with paragraph above)

Some search trends put the library at risk of being marginalized. But librarians still have the opportunity to remain the search experts, helping users make the most of new technologies to efficiently access the most useful information. To do this library’s need to do more than simply put our own resources online. We must help users access information from the outside as well. And we have to strike a balance between helping educate patrons so that they can achieve some of the independence they crave. They may not need us for every single search, but we can be the expert they consult when they do inevitably get overwhelmed or need advanced support. .The librarian’s role of organizing and disseminating information (wthin CPOD) is an essential part of maximizing the web and successful information retrieval.

SECTIONS CUT OUT

Still their infancy, Natural Language technologies would serve to alleviate the need to use exactly the “right” terms to retrieve relevant information. Instead users could make search inquiries in natural language just as they would pose a question to a human. Search engines (like Hakia) will be able to use contextual meaning instead of simple word matching. It is based on concepts and seeks to improve relevance of results. It will likely be more useful for more complex questions vs simple searches which can easily be achieved on regular search engines (Fox, 2008). The related but more futuristic field of artificial intelligence could also enable computers to facilitate complex searches by providing better guidance to users.

Education – Library staff will need to be up to date on techniques for proficient searching. They will also need to provide training to patrons to satisfy their need for increased independence.

More implications for library - Not yet discussed:

Search library catalogue from cellphone

Cost of database subscriptions for libraries

As more searchable content available on web, libraries will have smaller print collections

Libraries partnering with search engines to make libr content available for search (google book search)

OCLC, IConn, linking libraries,

Copyright

Librarians today are Resource sharing (not necessarily providing)

Questions:

Do we really want to increase access and independence? It’s a struggle

Inherent Conflict – do we want to make our web pages and search tools(metasearches, tagging) easier for the user? Or are we then putting ourselves out of business?

Citations:

Williams and Sawyer

Fryer, Donna. (2004). Federated Searching Aggregates multiple channels of information into a single searchable point.”

John Lubans Jr.
"I Can't Find You Anywhere but Gone," Revisited
Library Administration & Management 22 no4 205-7, 220 Fall 2008

Morrison,. The Dramatic Growth of Open Access: Implications and Opportunities for Resource Sharing.Authors:Morrison, Heather G.1Source:Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Electronic Reserves; 2006, Vol. 16 Issue 3, p95-107

THE WAY I SEE IT