Perhaps the most compelling facts that emerged from Convera's recently released results of a survey of "more than 1000 professionals", is that businesses are increasingly paying employees to hunt for information that can't be found on the web, and are making decisions or writing reports with just a sketchy grasp of all the facts.
Well, that's our "GYM" buddies for you! The reality of the three big "horizontal" engines - Google, Yahoo Search and MSN Search - is that they're great consumer search engines; advertisers will happily hand over cash to get their ads displayed on the basis of certain search terms. So, the consumer is likely to be exposed to the most relevant ads and site results from the engine's indexes. Win-win situation.
It doesn't work when it comes to sharing information for academic research or business research. What's the motivation for any organisation to make their intellectual collateral freely available to all, including competitors, online – none! And if it's all locked behind closed doors, then no search engine, no matter how "vertical" (the latest buzz phrase in search circles) will be able to get at it.
Convera's figures are disturbing: barely 10% find exactly what they're looking for (yes, for a staggering 90% the search is fruitless); 70% admit to getting side-tracked; and 60% do not ask for help. Less than 25% are confident that the big search engines give them results that have "looked everywhere".
Someone should do an analysis of precisely how much money is being lost each week as employees waste time doing incomplete and useless "research". And there is clearly a deficit of trust building up with regards to many search engines – people are more widely realising that many search results have far less value than first assumed.
This is why libraries and librarians are more necessary, not less so, as people think that "everything's on the Internet." Librarians have a good sense of what to look for on the Internet and what to look for elsewhere, and libraries have subscriptions to database services like DIALOG and Lexis/Nexis. It's false economy to skimp on library services in the belief that employees can find information for themselves.
ReplyDeleteThese days, keeping track of information is a full-time job, and the people who do that job full time are librarians.
Caryn Wesner-Early