Trust is a precious commodity on the Internet. The pressure to make dot coms profitable sometimes results in questionable handling of user data. Now libraries have banded together to offer an alternative.
Leading search service Google.com recently launched a new "tool bar extension" product, to enhance the capacity of individuals to launch Web searches within their own browsers, using Google's patented ranking technology. Sounds great what's the problem? Part of the product records every site you visit and reports it to Google. Google pledges not to provide that information to third parties, but some users find it troublesome that such profiling is being done at all.
Ask Jeeves, whose well-known butler answers questions posed in normal English, offers a "Butler Bar" to any Web user. The free bar links users both to the Jeeves site and to e-merchants. It maintains personal data for use with forms and online purchases. Again the company pledges privacy, but it seems like a lot of information to give up in return for the convenience. It's hard to see Jeeves keeping up with times, either. Known for its intensive use of human beings to catalog and manage its database of answers, Ask Jeeves just laid off 25% of its workforce after losing $127.6 million during the first 9 months of 2000.
Even with the most sophisticated search programs, like Google and Ask Jeeves, Web users still find themselves sifting through large quantities of information, often without many clues about its quality. That's where libraries enter the picture: reference librarians not only answer questions, but sift for quality in the process. Decades of traditional service have also built a steady base of trust and regard for library performance among the public.
You say 24/7 reference service for a global clientele doesn't sound like a library? Think again - the Library of Congress is leading a consortium of dozens of libraries around the world to offer just that. In test now, the Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS) brings together libraries from Canada, Australia, Great Britain and the United States.
By adding human intervention and access to non-electronic collections to online services, the gratification is sometimes slower, but much deeper. Service may be measured in hours, rather than milliseconds, but credibility
and quality are the objects.
For more on the CDRS project, or for concerns about commercial search services, try some further reading:
