Interesting

[dreamer_easy]

"Google is the library's friend because it has 'turned people on to information', Dr Alex Byrne, the state librarian of NSW, says. Where once only highly educated people looked things up, 'now you see it across the population', Byrne says."

- Digital age takes libraries off the shelf

That's intriguing - it's a bit like the way videos were supposed to kill off cinema but instead gave it a boost. Instant, easy searchability must be the first really big change in reading since the printing press. I myself have developed what I call a "Google twitch", which is the automatic impulse to do a search on absolutely anything given the slightest excuse. There are definite downsides to this: I'll sometimes find myself waist-deep in a totally pointless quest for information I don't really care about, but worse, I've become terribly impatient with people online who won't even do as much as skim-read the first page of Google results, or plug a search term into Wikipedia. Those very basic tools are free and simple, you fools - get off my lawn and use them!

Comments

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

It's okay for him: he's running the State Library. Down here in regular libray land, we're being told that "everything's on the Web: what do we need libraries for?" Then they scream for specialist research.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

it's been fascinating to watch society becoming an info-rich culture over the last decade