Google is getting to be an evil empire (maybe it’s already there) but I don’t know what to think of it. Working in an institution that has a partnership with google is not that easy for someone who thinks google is evil. I am wondering how people who are working in Microsoft deal with their company’s evilness. Worse, as a librarian it is impossible to get away from google. I guess I can promote scroogle and their google scraper search (check out the Firefox scroogle search extension!) but there is no google scholar or google books version of scroogle. As part of my everyday job, I have to struggle with questions like:
- Should Google be branded on our library site or not?
- Should we promote google books and google scholar and if so, then how?
I don’t have any grounded answers for these questions.So what should be done? Can we boycott Google? Should we? Can libraries create their own tools? Unlike other products or companies where a boycott could work (think Walmart or MS software), not using google will not work because they’re so ubiquitous and branching out from search into wifi infrastructure, email, Web apps like Writely etc. Additionally, how many other information products that libraries use are produced by unethical corporations? LexisNexis?
Many librarians are struggling to cope with the feeling that google will take over the library and their jobs. However, I think we have to remember that libraries are different from google despite google’s claim that google and librarians’ missions are similar (I just found out). Many librarians think google is our competitor, but if we compete with google then we will lose. Think about how much money is behind google and how many people work for google.
I think we have to go back to our roots and our fundamental library mission as an educational institution. I will be thinking over the holiday weekend on the issue of google and libraries and hopefully come up with philosophical premises that I can share with our staff and let them know where I stand on this.
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