Against the Grain Volume 20 | Issue 2 Article 7 April 2008 I Google, You Google, We Google... Aline Soules Cal State East Bay, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Soules, Aline (2008) "I Google, You Google, We Google...," Against the Grain: Vol. 20: Iss. 2, Article 7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.2734 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. I Google, You Google, We Google . by Aline Soules (Cal State East Bay) <[email protected]> Perhaps you remem- In the Classroom • Google Scholar results don’t come from ber the Henry Wad- To go with Google’s growing power is our the Web; depending on set preferences, sworth Longfellow own growing dependency, which is confirmed they come from Open WorldCat and poem that describes a in my classroom. Among other duties at Cal our Cal State East Bay holdings little girl: “When she Photo by Lois Tema. State East Bay, my colleagues and I teach a • While Google Scholar is a search en- was good, she was very two-credit information literacy course required gine, like its mother ship, it acts as a good indeed, but when she was bad, she was of all incoming first year students. My class platform in a manner similar to those of horrid.”1 I often feel the same way about consists of an amazing range of students. They our commercial vendors Google. I love it and use it as often as the vary by ethnicity, country of birth, prepara- • A platform is not a database next person, but, occasionally, I have misgiv- tion level, major, etc. They have one thing ings about the implications for our educational • Content is not the same as its delivery in common, though: they are digital natives. mechanism system, our libraries, and our future. This, however, does not guarantee that they • Content can be retrieved from our da- The Goal of Google are digitally savvy. In fact, many are quite the opposite. They can point and click, but they tabase through various delivery mecha- Google’s mission may be “to organize the lack skills in searching or in evaluating what nisms — the database itself, other world’s information and make it universally ac- databases, federated searching, Google 2 they find. And it’s not because they aren’t cessible and useful,” but Google’s success de- bright or lively or interested in their subjects. Scholar, commercial platforms, and pends on the pursuit of profit for shareholders. It’s their preparation, their assumptions in this even, print materials Easy searching and minimal frustration help to new information world, and the omnipresent Beyond these concepts is the issue of entice people to click on ads which garner rev- Google and its ilk. evaluation. In one exercise, I ask them to enue. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s I can show students databases, the cata- compare newspapers’ Websites. We discuss founders, were featured on the cover of Fortune bias, ownership history, magazine’s December 13, 2004 issue, along log, and other sources on and off the Web, but left on their own, they return to Google. what each paper chooses with the heading “Google: Is this company to place “above the fold” worth $165 a share?” The article focused on Many students prefer to avoid deal- ing with complex databases, (an interesting absorption the rise of the stock in the four months since the of a print term into the IPO had been issued.3 “‘They’ve created the complex strategies, or complex scholarly Web environment), and first new and effective ad medium in 50 years,’ other features. I also show [said] consultant Seth Godin. ‘It’s brilliant.”4 articles and do so only when required by their them sites such as www. No mention of Google’s mission, just profit. I factcheck.org. Students checked on Google’s closing price on the first instructors. They don’t have the time or the in- easily click from Google day of trading (August 18, 2004, $100.34) and results to Web pages, but on December 13, 2007, exactly three years after clination — besides, it’s harder. Many of them are surprised at the differ- this article appeared ($674.05). The stock has ences on these news sites and need topped $700 at times.5 In addition, no mat- cope with work, school, and family obligations. Of course, there are guidance in evaluating those differences and ter how much Microsoft or Yahoo! (or their the reasons for them. combined forces, if one purchases the other) some who like the library resources, but for most, it takes a lot of convincing. When it Google is also an interesting way to ini- struggle to catch up and surpass Google, there tiate discussions about information ethics are no current signs of their doing so. comes to choosing a search engine, Google comes first. — copyright, privacy, etc. Copyright, not Google’s interests extend beyond content. My opening approach is to start where surprisingly, is a mystery to them. For them According to Michael Wolff, “it’s the age privacy is irrelevant, unless they are comput- of the media gadget,”6 such as the Google they are most familiar. “How many of you use Google?” Up go the hands, including my ing majors or have personal experience with phone, currently in development. According an invasion of privacy. They have grown up to Wolff’s sources, Google “may even give own. Beyond that, I discover what many of them don’t know: with a very different perspective on this topic. the phone to you. It wants to get rid of all the When I describe the use of cookies and men- rules. It really wants to go for anarchy. Of • The meaning and purpose of http and tion that Google keeps their search queries for course, this is an anarchic world that Google html, a domain name, URL construction, eighteen months, their response is “So?” Yet, will control.”7 and the existence of suffixes beyond according to a Google executive who didn’t Google now “accounts for just over sixty .com, .org, .net, or .edu (even though want to be identified for a New Yorker article, per cent of the world’s Internet searches, and they may have visited such sites) “Privacy is an atomic bomb…Our success is its power comes from the data it collects from • That you can influence search results based on trust.”10 Google understands this, all those searches.”8 As a result, Google’s through the use of quotation marks, whether from the principle of privacy or the competitors are uneasy and Google is paying truncation, and other devices potential of liability, but my students need an more attention to them and to the political • That in addition to Google and a couple explanation. arena. There have been lawsuits (Viacom sued of its competitors which they know, there All of these elements come into play with Google in March, 2007 for copyright infringe- are other commercial search engines, and Google and I use it as a jumping off point to ment) and complaints by consumer activists there are also non-commercial search try to convey these and other concepts. By that have drawn attention from politicians, e.g., engines that can provide some vetted the end of the quarter, some of them under- Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Herb Kohl results stand that Google has its place, but that other (D-WI). In November, 2007, these Senators • That in addition to Google and, some- information sources, delivery mechanisms, and “asked the Federal Trade Commission to ex- times, iGoogle, there are Google Books, strategies are helpful, at least while they are amine the competition questions raised by the Google Scholar, etc. in university and have access. Some of them, acquisition of the Internet advertising company however, will always prefer Google. The lure 9 And this is before we get to concepts DoubleClick by Google.” As a result, Google such as: is hard to resist and, ultimately, when they will is increasing its presence in Washington, D.C. be cut off from our commercial databases after • The Internet is not the Web and will likely be as successful in lobbying as graduation, Google may give them one of the • A search engine is not a database in everything else. continued on page 20 18 Against the Grain / April 2008 <http://www.against-the-grain.com> fiction reading and have trouble making Other factors that are highlighted through I Google, You Google ... sense of the mixture of fiction, digital classroom experience are multiple formats for from page 18 information, nonfiction, and assigned different learning styles and ADA compliance, reading that make up the diet of the YA and the growth in online delivery (my own few free access points to information. If they reader.” Holley: “It depends on what course section will go online or be “hybrid” take nothing else away from my class, evalu- you consider ‘reading.’”13 in fall 2008). These all suggest new collec- ation is the element I wish them to remember Regardless, will the possibility of a library tion principles and practices. What is a library because they can use that skill in any informa- or a home with reduced or minimal tactile print today? A “collection” or an “access portal?” tion environment. hasten the transformation process? Will people As we rely more and more on Google, we I only spend one lesson of my ten-week give up reading for other delivery formats like must update and refine how we present the quarter directly on Google and the Web, al- Google’s YouTube? Use the latest hand-held information we gather.