Stop the press: Google is grim!

I always enjoy being kept abreast of scientific developments by tuning into Leading Edge on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday evenings. A riveting piece of radio journalism! Last Thursday (15th November 2007) we had reports on a team from the US that has created cloned embryos from an adult primate and an invigorating debate on the deployment of brain enhancement drugs. We also had researchers that have demonstrated how robotic cockroaches can influence the behaviour of real ones. However, Leading Edge often gives us snippets of news that impinge directly on what we do within the Information Strategy Group – and last Thursday was no exception.

Technology guru Bill Thompson explained why he believes Google is corrupting us all. This is a refreshing viewpoint from a technology commentator and not one we are accustomed to hearing (except from librarians, information scientists and some computer scientists!). Such commentators normally fail to observe the limitations of any information retrieval tool and drone on about how 'cool' it is. Not Thompson. "We have all fallen for the illusion" because it is "easy" and "simple", says Thompson. "Google and the other search engines have encouraged us to forget the fundamental difference between search and research".

Google is indeed easy and simple. To make his point Thompson (unwittingly?) revisits well worn LIS arguments emanating from the metadata, cataloguing, and indexing areas. Some of these emerged in the 1970s when the efficacy of automatic indexing began to improve. These arguments cite issues of reconciling the terms used to describe concepts and issues of collocation (e.g. 'Java' the coffee, 'Java' the programming language, 'Java' the primary landmass of Indonesia, etc.) and differentiating between information about Tony Blair and information by Tony Blair. Thompson almost sounds surprised when he vents spleen over Google's inability to make sense of the word ‘Quark’. Welcome to web search engines, Bill!

The most astonishing part of Thompson's report was not his LIS-tinged rant about Google, but his suggestion that librarians had themselves fallen for the Google illusion, along with the academics and school children. Pardon? What could have given him this impression??? Was it an ill-judged, off hand comment?

The body of research and development exploring the use metadata on the web is gigantic and is largely driven by the LIS community. The 'deep web' is almost synonymous with digital library content or database content under the custodianship of information professionals. Those in content management or information architecture will also be singing from the LIS hymn sheet. The Semantic Web is another development that seeks to resolve Thompson's 'Quark conundrum'. Even at front line services, librarians are rolling out information literacy sessions as a means of communicating the importance of using deep web tools, but also making users aware of Google's limitations (e.g. Google only indexes a small portion of the web, problems of information authoritativeness, etc., etc.).

That is not to say that the profession doesn't flirt with Google; of course it does! It flirts with Google because Google provides a vehicle through which to introduce users to valuable information (often from the deep web). And such flirting does not immediately jettison well formed library and information management theories or principals (see an ex-colleague, for example [1], [2], [3] and [4]).

Of course, I could go on for a lot longer, but there doesn’t seem to be any point as you already know the arguments. But you can listen to Bill Thompson’s report on Leading Edge to hear the arguments of yore restyled by a technology guru. You may also feel compelled to contact Leading Edge to vent your spleen!