Thing 34: Online Answer Sites: Competition for Reference Librarians?

In the article "Evolution to Revolution to Chaos? Reference in Transition", Stephen Abram quotes from Barbara Quint "that Google answered as many reference queries in half an hour as all the reference librarians in the world did in 7 years".

That may be so, but it doesn't mean that Google gave all of those people a good answer, or the right answer. And though they would be ashamed to admit it, there are many people who search Google and never find their answer!

"Answer sites" are even less helpful than search engines, as they are not designed to refine a question or filter through the answers. It seems as if they are more designed for leisure reading rather than education. SnappyFingers is a good example of this type of answer site. For the heck of it, I typed "dog" into the search window, and the first few sites retrieved were commercial sites that just so happened to have "dog" in the product's name. Then there were questions and answers about particular breeds of dog, or dog-related issues. What if I wanted to know what a dog was? I would be quite confused. And I can't smack the computer like I would a vending machine if I didn't get the right answer for the time and effort I had spent.

Although it is true that many people these days exist in self-created bubbles of technology, where they can sit for hours chatting with friends, watching movies, preparing a report for the next day's meeting at work and surfing the net concurrently, not everyone is glued to their computers, and nor should they be. One of the reasons reference librarians still exist is for the human support that people look for in unfamiliar environments. To this day, the library remains an unnatural environment for many people. They are bewildered by shelves, computer labs, signs, stairs leading to who knows where. They need assurance that they are in the right place, plus a nudge in the right direction to find the information that they are looking for. In an academic library, the reference librarian will not only answer a question at the Reference Desk, but will show the patron how they located the answer. They will also answer questions for students or faculty if they are having trouble using the library databases, catalog, or the library website itself. And many times, patrons will also seek out the Reference Librarian to answer technology-related issues as well. No online or virtual resource will replace a Reference Librarian, because when a person is frustrated or confused, their brain will shut off to technology. They would like to speak with a human being who also has experienced this same level of confusion.

There are many questions, however, which Reference Librarians may never be asked. Not everyone feels comfortable asking for information at the Reference Desk regarding sensitive medical issues, or sexual orientation or gender identity issues. It is too public, for one thing, and for another thing, if the patron is not comfortable with the subject themselves, they may not approach the Reference Librarian for fear of judgment or rejection. People who do not speak English as their first language, or who come from particular ethnic or religious groups, may also be hesitant to approach a Reference Librarian for fear of not being understood or fear of judgment, or rejection. And so people who need information for sensitive personal issues will tend to search on their own for this information. In these cases, then, it is important for libraries to provide quality resources on those subjects, for no other reason than to save lives.

I revisited SnappyFingers to see what type of websites I would retrieve if I did searches for "gay" and "lesbian". Neither term pulled up results from authoritative LGBTIQ websites or even Wikipedia. In both cases, half of the results retrieved were quite childish--people on their personal blogs who insisted that they weren't gay or lesbian. The one definition that SnappyFingers retrieved for lesbian used terminology no longer used to describe lesbians, or even gay men. So these "Answer Sites" are like search engines that had lobotomies.

Reference Librarians will have jobs for many years to come--especially if they can continue to advise people on their information options. How awesome it would be if someone conducted a search on Google, clicked on a potentially inappropriate resource, and a pop-up window with the Reference Librarian on duty would appear, asking "Are you sure you want to visit that site? Here are other resources you should try--", and the Reference Librarian would provide a link to an ebook (or book in Reference or the catalog), a more authoritative website, or a journal article. That would be power. I always call librarians "the information mafia", as it is we who often control the flow and quality of information that people receive. We should be watching.