I was one of the early adopters of Google. It was refreshing after the cluttered pages of Yahoo and Lycos to see that simple expanse of white. As they perfected their algorithms, the searches got more and more precise. I knew I could get a balance of precision and recall that was satisfying to me. At some point, the search results began to get less and less satisfying. I could tell when they were messing with their algorithms because it would get harder to get good results with the same search strings I had been using all along. Here is one person’s example. I was getting irrelevant results like this all the time. (In fact, I just searched for “precision and recall” on Google and got pages of SEO pages, along with wikipedia and scholarly articles I don’t have access to at home without jumping through hoops.) Part of the reason for this is that Google has been “personalizing” my search results, sometimes based on where I am (though it thinks I am in a large city with the same name in another state, so those results are generally useless), sometimes based on what I have searched for previously.

Here are some pages focusing on changes at Google and why it might become a less useful search engine as it tries to become more social:

First, we’ll start with Google’s own explanations of the current changes to search: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/search-plus-your-world.html. Notice the adorable hand-drawn graphics and quirky search examples. This is to distract you from what is really going on. While they are personalizing and socializing your results, they are also gathering information about you. Worse than that, though, they are limiting what you can find using their service. I honestly don’t mind trading some anonymous data that will be aggregated in order to get good search results, but I mind very much that their limited understanding of who I am will dictate what they show me. I’ve long been concerned about the effect of the Internet on the availability of information– I contend that the amount of information actually available to many of us goes down if we rely solely on the Internet/Web. I guess that’s a post for another day.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/01/25/145830858/googles-new-privacy-policy-will-allow-tracking-across-services An NPR article about Google’s new privacy plan.

http://techland.time.com/2012/01/17/why-googles-biggest-problem-isnt-antitrust-with-search-plus-your-world/ and http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/google-search-is-dead.php These articles trace Google’s decline from the “simple white box and search results that made the search engine such a joy to use in the first place” to where it is now. (The discussion of the Olympics search reminded me of my futile attempt to use Google to find out where and when a conference happened last year so I could do a write-up on it.)

http://gizmodo.com/5875571/google-just-made-bing-the-best-search-engine This is just a quick article by one tech writer explaining why he has switched to Bing as his main search provider. Interestingly, the commenters support Google limiting its results to Google properties because they say it makes sense financially for Google.

Here is the way one organization is fighting the new Google: http://gigaom.com/2012/01/23/dont-be-evil-is-not-a-slogan-nor-a-browser-extension/: a browser extension for Firefox that compares search results from Google and from other search engines. “Don’t be evil” is Google’s motto, but like the author of this piece, I’m certain Google no longer lives by that motto.

http://searchengineland.com/examples-google-search-plus-drive-facebook-twitter-crazy-107554 This is an interesting article from a different point of view… not that of a searcher who wants the best results, but that of a consultant to companies who want to rank higher on Google results. Notice that a key to having the best results is no longer being most relevant, most linked, or most popular, but being a member of Google’s network. In his example, Britney Spears’ Facebook page does not show up in search results for her, while her Google+ profile does show up. What happens to those companies who have their primary online presence on Facebook?

One point I’ve had about getting too comfortable with Google has been that when it inevitably goes South, the lazy search habits it encourages will keep us from being able to get good results out of other engines. Over-reliance on Google will also cause us to overlook quicker ways to get information, such as through an online directory or in a print resource. For individuals, this might not be a big deal, as long as you know you’re making that trade-off. For librarians, though, who are providing information for others, it’s important that we challenge ourselves and keep our skills up.

As for me, I’m switching back to the Firefox browser from Chrome, staying logged out of Google +, and using alternative search engines, including meta-search engines. I’m currently experimenting with Bing. On Safari. (And a commenter on one of the above articles mentioned Duck Duck Go.

Fight the Feed

*I don’t believe there are true objective measures of a page’s quality or relevance, but I do believe that commercial consideration is NOT a good measure of quality!

Today, the news broke that she had been pressured to withdraw to preserve the “integrity” of the award and the judges’ work. On one hand, I understand that the judges did not select the book, but on the other hand, this is both a worthy book and a real human being that they have humiliated and hurt to preserve the “integrity” of their work. Also, what does it say about their “integrity” that they first said they would consider the book in addition to the other five and then changed their mind and tried to privately shame her into withdrawing from consideration? Did they think that would make things better? Why didn’t they just say last week, “oops, we made a mistake and named the wrong book and forgot to fact-check before making the announcement.” (Let’s not even go into why phones are terrible media for important things.) I think that would have been easier to stomach than this.

My heart aches for Lauren. I can imagine how horrible it feels to have something like this dangled in front of you and then snatched away. I hope that she gets lots of sales out of this and her book gets the attention it deserves. As for the award itself, I will continue to ignore it and read books based on their own merits.

Publisher’s Weekly article

The reason I even bring this up here is because librarians have chimed in agreeing with many of the points on the list, including the frustration of finding a book with little information. In some ways, I understand the booksellers being frustrated, since they might not have been trained in reader’s advisory or reference. But librarians? Librarians who should know how to ask questions to find out what the patron is really looking for? The real problem I see is that patrons can tell if the librarian feels inconvenienced or is looking down on the patron. Patrons can tell if the librarian would really rather you go elsewhere. We can’t take patrons for granted. Patrons who feel slighted or unwelcome in the library will just go away. They might not make a grand fuss about it, they might not ever tell you why they’re not coming back; they’ll just find themselves too busy to go to the library. They’ll buy all their books, or borrow them from friends and family, or just stop reading. Do we have such a glut of patrons, of readers, that we can afford to alienate them? And why would we want anyone to leave the library feeling like an inconvenience?

Please note that I am NOT advocating allowing people to trash the library (or bookstore) or leave their children unattended. This is unacceptable behavior. What is NOT unacceptable behavior is: looking for the latest Oprah Winfrey book, reading Twilight, remembering only a few details about a book you heard about on the radio last month, or being confused because the corporate overlords dictate moving everything around every week so customers CAN’T find anything without your help. (The last one is bookstore specific– I hope libraries don’t get into that habit!) It’s a real Catch-22 to the customer, who knows he’s inconveniencing you by asking questions, but who has to ask because everything is different now.

I know how appalling some people can behave in public. I have cleaned up after my fair share of them (both as a worker AND as a fellow customer.) But we HAVE to recognize the difference between the horrendous, thoughtless behavior that is unacceptable and the normal human behavior that allows us to have a job.

I do agree with Seth Godin and I am going to try to write more, publicly, every day. I think it will help my writing for publication as well. I’m working on several articles and a couple of research projects. One article is on culture shock in school libraries and the other is a narrative of my experiences doing institutional ethnography in a school. I want to write it in a way that would be useful to a librarian who wants to examine work processes and discover how to change them for the better.

I focused on school libraries and youth services in my research and classwork. This blog will focus on issues of library services to youth and the underserved. I’ll also look at technology and new media in connection with how it shapes library work with and by youth.

This semester, I’m teaching Youth Services and Internet Reference, so it’s likely most of my posts will be related to those two topics.

Book Meme Rules
1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people

All places of public resort require the restraint of a police, and places of this kind peculiarly, because offenses against society are especially apt to originate there.

The next three sentences take up about a page: it’s John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty.

Consider yourself tagged… but I think I’m the last person to do this meme.

I know I’ve been mostly negative about SL in the past, but I can really see the potential. Tonight, two classmates and I were trying to figure out whether we would have time to get together and discuss our projects. Something like Second Life would be very cool for that. Yes, it would just be chatting with our avatars as visual representations, but it would add another element for those of us with learning differences.

I’m both attracted to and repelled by Second Life. I LOVE the idea and think some of the execution is wonderful. However, I see it as a further enforcer of the digital divide. My brand new, best computer I can afford on a graduate stipend with student financing is not compatible with Second Life. Where does that leave people using refurbished P2s? Or schools? Second Life is currently solely for the technological elite, not for the regular people. Which is sad, because I really wanted to get involved and finally have a computer that’s fast enough.