Google Guy: Reference Librarians Can Keep Jobs

-- Library Journal, 05/21/2003

The goal of Google, according to Craig Silverstein, Google’s director of technology, is to seem as smart as a reference librarian. Silverstein presented new directions for the search engine during the opening keynote at the InfoToday Conference 2003 in New York, May 7, mentioning librarians while discussing the development of natural language queries. The Holy Grail, for Google--to act like a reference librarian in responding to these queries--is "hundreds of years away." Information professionals are needed to help people articulate their information needs, to help form queries, and to engage in the back and forth dialog that results in finding appropriate information.

Google users can look forward to more information online, including "what you don't think of as information," such as web logs. Another example is Google's catalogs project -- the scanning of content from consumer catalogs. This proof of concept supports Google's mission "to make all the world's information available." Searching in the future will require "a greater role for discernment." There will be more information, "but it will not necessarily all be good information," said Silverstein. Librarians also can expect questions to get harder, since researchers will be able to answer the easier questions themselves with search engines. "What exists that the engine couldn't return?" Silverstein asked. "Is there more out there?"