Comments on: Search as Alchemy http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2007/03/12/library-stuff/ Culture, Politics, Academia and Other Shiny Objects Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:26:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Andrew Plimmer http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2007/03/12/library-stuff/comment-page-1/#comment-4982 Andrew Plimmer Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:09:05 +0000 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=344#comment-4982 Through Google Book Search, Google is more likely to be at the outer frontiers of where its paradigm will continue to function smoothly with google scholar in effect and guided by bibliographic controls and users. Through Google Book Search, Google is more likely to be at the outer frontiers of where its paradigm will continue to function smoothly with google scholar in effect and guided by bibliographic controls and users.

]]> By: back40 http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2007/03/12/library-stuff/comment-page-1/#comment-3336 back40 Tue, 13 Mar 2007 02:52:18 +0000 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=344#comment-3336 "sometimes users don’t know what they want to know. It isn’t necessarily that there’s an expert out there who knows better, but it might be that the user wants or needs to find something completely different than what they expected to find, or that their tentative articulation of intent is at odds with a desire that is unspoken and unknown even to the user himself or herself." Sounds like a need for a good research librarian. (I think of someone like Bob Watson when I say this). In the past I've speculated that this may at some point be possible to do with a clever search agent, but that for now none are so clever. It's a different sort of expertise than we usually mean when we use the word expert. There's a good deal of people skill involved as well as cross domain knowledge in some depth. “sometimes users don’t know what they want to know. It isn’t necessarily that there’s an expert out there who knows better, but it might be that the user wants or needs to find something completely different than what they expected to find, or that their tentative articulation of intent is at odds with a desire that is unspoken and unknown even to the user himself or herself.”

Sounds like a need for a good research librarian. (I think of someone like Bob Watson when I say this). In the past I’ve speculated that this may at some point be possible to do with a clever search agent, but that for now none are so clever.

It’s a different sort of expertise than we usually mean when we use the word expert. There’s a good deal of people skill involved as well as cross domain knowledge in some depth.

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