I don’t think there is an “end result” or any one-size-fits-all solution, but that we have been encouraged to think there is by those software vendors who are the most anxious to hype their latest product (Google fans included!). Most marketing includes a hefty dose of oversimplifying and overstating. Combine this with companies looking for savings, and you end up with products bought in the belief that they can meet all your search needs, only to discover too late what they cannot do.

I think that the concept of the “average searcher” doesn’t help as it is misleading without putting it in context. If we are talking about the general public performing leisure searches, then Google is fabulous. However, I think there is a danger in underestimating people’s ability to navigate classifications. The main reason mass classification projects fell out of favour on the web was not because people couldn’t navigate them, but because they are labour intensive and hance slow and expensive to create, so web resources were being produced way faster than they could be classified. Most people actually feel comforted by following navigation links when they know they are “zooming in” on what they need. Automated classification is worth pursuing because it can provide at least some rough and ready classification cheaply. It is the cost of classifying well, not the usability of good classifications, that is the real problem. (People may mistake poor usability for poor classification, but that’s an issue for another day…)

However, if our “average searcher” is a knowledge worker, they may have access to specialised databases at the moment, but the threat to them is that their employers will say “oh you only need Google, let’s stop paying for our specialist resources and sack our librarians”. They may realise too late that this is a false economy, but as with all complex systems, it’s much easier to pull them apart than reconstruct them. Proving ROI on specialist research services is notoriously difficult and claims that “information is free” and “people will organise it for free” don’t help.

The term “average searcher” may cover a huge range of different people with different needs. Types of search differ, contexts differ, risks differ, and so what is worth paying for will differ. If your searchers are dealing with a high-cost, high-risk area such as pharmaceutical law, perhaps you do need enough of a library service to support almost every search. If your company sells a small range of novelty postcards, a handful of simple categories for your folder structure or website will probably suffice. In most cases, you will probably need a selection of tools and systems.

I believe that we need to increase information literacy throughout society generally, which means increasing public understanding of the complexities of search. It should be taught in schools as a fundamental part of education and as information professionals we should be helping people to understand that Google won’t solve everything.

No-one except the most cynical of bankers would argue that kids shouldn’t be taught about debt and interest, mortgages, and taxation because the “average person” finds these topics hard to understand. In whose interests is it to limit people’s skills and knowledge? It’s precisely because the digital world is getting more complex that we need more education, more discussion, and more thinking about search and retrieval than ever before.

Regards,
Daniel

Life has trumped blogging for me lately. Just thought you might be interested in what’s at the top of my reading pile: a new post on the VocabControl blog titled “Google is not perfect.” Perhaps I am starting to suffer…