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Thanks for this discussion thread. I would argue that good librarians don't provide answers at all, they provide the means to ask thoughtful, critical questions. Also, in adding to the reading list, I thoroughly recommend Astra Taylor's *The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age*: http://www.worldcat.org/title/peoples-platform-taking-back-power-and-culture-in-the-digital-age/oclc/761850064 Best, Siân On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 12:07 PM, Goldsmith, Ivan Victor <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hi there, > > This is something I've been thinking about a lot in the past few weeks. > > > I don't think librarians necessarily give people the "right answers" (what > does it mean for an answer to be "right", anyway?). Sure, not everything on > the Internet is true, but not everything that came from a librarian's mouth > or a book is true, either. Humans are frequently wrong no matter which > medium they're using to reach an audience. > > Libraries don't provide the "right" answers -- they provide *different* > answers through a different lens, and that's what's important. > > > Quoting what I told a colleague earlier this week: There are major perks > to the fact that libraries are NOT Google. Our motivations are vastly > different from Google's, and this makes all the difference. > > We do not track our patrons. We do not record their every move and sell > that information to advertisers. > > We do not bias their search results based on previous behavior. We do not > filter or limit the information they can find based on what we or our > algorithms think they might like. We don't build profiles to guess at their > demographic and skew the materials we give them to reaffirm their > preexisting beliefs. Patrons can come to the library and search for > knowledge in peace, separate from the baggage of the Internet's pervasive > tracking data and invasive profiling. > > We are neutral in the services we provide, and that is invaluable in the > age of personalization. > > > If you have the time for a quick read, you'll find Eli Pariser's "The > Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You< > https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10596103-the-filter-bubble>" to be > very relevant. > > Best, > > -- Ivan Goldsmith > Front End Developer > > Penn Libraries Web Unit > > ________________________________________ > From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Cornel > Darden Jr. <[log in to unmask]> > Sent: Friday, April 1, 2016 12:31 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: [CODE4LIB] Google can give you answers, but librarians give you > the right answers > > Hello, > > "Google can give you answers, but librarians give you the right answers." > > Is it me? Or is there something wrong with this statement? > > I've been hearing statements like this since I've been in the field. > Tonight I saw a public library post on FB: > > Library: "because not everything on the internet is true" > > Some people applauded the statement and were like: "yay librarians!" > > Others thought it was a very ignorant statement. And many patrons caused a > huge backlash. It was interesting as the library responded to the irritated > patrons. > > Thoughts? > > Thanks, > > Cornel Darden Jr. > Chief Information Officer > Casanova Information Services, LLC > Office Phone: (779) 205-3105 > Mobile Phone: (708) 705-2945 > > Sent from my iPhone > -- Siân Evans, MA, MLS Instruction Librarian, Decker Library Maryland Institute College of Art 1300 West Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217 tel: 410-225-2715 email: [log in to unmask] http: www.mica.edu/library