I'd say that before Google, "AltaVista knew". In my experience, it was AltaVista that transformed the web/Internet from a collection of disparate sites to a single place that you went for answers to questions.<p>Before AltaVista, I used to write the URL for any useful web and ftp servers that I found in a logbook, so I could find them again. Getting an answer was a matter of looking up the logbook, deciding which website might have the required information, then typing the URL into my browser. After AltaVista the logbook fell into disuse, as locating information was a matter of typing a few well chosen keywords into AltaVista and visiting a few of its top hits.<p>Google took over from AltaVista, but at the time it felt like Google was a "better AltaVista" than something completely new.
One thing that this article fails to point out is how often librarians were wrong before Google. In 1986 there was a study[0] that showed that across the board reference librarians were only correct about 55% of the time.<p>I think most people today would consider a query answering system that had an accuracy of 55% to be an interesting curiosity, but certainly not ready for real-world application.<p>It's funny how frequently we measure machine learning performance of an "easy for humans" task and fail to compare it to human accuracy on the same data. We just assume humans would do perfectly on it. I'm sure there are a few MNIST digits that I would get wrong.<p>[0] P.Hernon, C McClure "Unobtrusive Reference Testing: The 55 Percent Rule," Library Journal, 111 April 15,1986
I'm a bit confused by this article because Google can't actually answer the complex questions that the librarians have received. Google's "knowledge graph" can answer simple questions, based on scraped Wikipedia data, and the core part of the site (the search engine) presents users with a semi-random set of links, basically telling them to find the answer on someone else's site. It's like a librarian that knows a little bit of info (but not quite enough) who then tells you which part of the library to go to find a book that may or many not have the answer to your question. A site like Quora is better for answering complex questions.<p>IMHO, the "knowledge graph" actually shows that Google is very poor at determining the implied questions people are asking, and exposed the failures of alogorithmic search in general: <a href="http://newslines.org/blog/googles-black-hole/" rel="nofollow">http://newslines.org/blog/googles-black-hole/</a>
I was channel surfing on TV yesterday and flicked onto one of the Harry Potter films, to hear Hermione saying she researched something in the library and couldn't find a single reference - my immediate thought before moving on a channel was that (assuming I don't have her magical skills), I would have no idea how to research something in a library without either the internet, or asking other people who might know where I could find the answers.<p>(I say no idea - obviously on a basic level it wouldn't be hard to start by finding all books on the rough topic, reading them, etc.... but to do it with any sort of efficiency as opposed to so slowly that I'd end up beating myself to death with a hardcover.)
<i>Can you tell me the thickness of a U.S. Postage stamp with the glue on it? Answer: We couldn't tell you that answer quickly. Why don't you try the Post Office? Response: This is the Post Office. (1963)</i><p>This has a strong odor of trolling to it - one wonders how many questions directed at librarians were genuine vs. mischievous. I'm also struck by the failure to provide an answer rather than suggest a method, eg 'use a calipers to make precise measures of physical objects. If it is too difficult to measure a single stamp, measure a block of multiple sheets and divide your result by the number of sheets.'
As a librarian-programmer, I continue to find it interesting how interested HN is in libraries/librarians.<p>I wonder what that's about? Seriously, I'm not entirely sure and wonder. Some kind of nostalgia for the 'information technology' of pre-computing society?<p>(Personally, while I still work in libraries, I share btipling's [<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8781169" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8781169</a>] general lack of optimism about the future of libraries, alas.)
> "Can you tell me the thickness of a U.S. Postage stamp with the glue on it? Answer: We couldn't tell you that answer quickly. Why don't you try the Post Office? Response: This is the Post Office. (1963)"<p>Haha!<p>An inexpensive caliper gauge, available in any specialty tool outlet, could yield an instant empirical answer to within about 10 microns.
I am one of those programmers who doesn't have a computer science background. Instead I have an MLS (and an undergrad anthropology degree) and thus though myself am not a librarian have some idea of the value librarians provide.<p>For one thing librarians try to satisfy the information need of a patron. This is different than answering the question asked, which even now search engines can't really do well yet. Google search is powerful but you're searching an unfathomably large index and your query is a key. What librarians do is try to understand the exact thing you want to know, which you may not even know when you asked the question. Often a librarian will respond to a question with a question.<p>A librarian will also continue to help until the problem has been solved for the patron. They'll encourage a patron who might feel discouraged. Librarians treat people as people, not as queries.<p>Librarians are also staunch defenders of privacy and information freedom. In America, librarians are professionals with a code of ethics, which is codified by the American Library Association. Librarians are taught the complex issues involving privacy, the chill effect. Librarians are not in the business of collecting your personal information or selling you advertising. Librarians fight censorship, and they fight to protect your privacy.<p>Librarians are supremely excellent at curating. Go to a Barnes & Nobles and look at the selection of children's books. Read some of them. Then go to your local library's children's section and read some of those books. It's night and day. Libraries are filled with amazingly valuable books that, especially in the case of children's books, address important issues, are beautiful and beautifully written. They're not stories about Barbie rescuing a fashion show, they're about relatable and enjoyable characters that discover the world around them, learning to understand themselves.<p>Having said all this there are considerable problems in the American librarian profession which turned me off to it.<p>Librarians were slow to react to digital content, which put them at a disadvantage on digital rights management issues. Walking into a public library can for some be like a time warp to 20 years ago, with volumes of books filling shelves everywhere. There's a reason for that, books can be lent out. By sticking to books librarians haven't been the force they should have been in fighting DRM and copyright laws that would enable access to digital information to more people. Libraries spend considerable amounts of money for highly protected digital content like JSTOR.<p>Librarianship as a profession is also one dominated by time in service type of seniority. I wanted to be a programmer at a library. I was a programmer at a library as an undergraduate student and there were librarians who programmed to manage the library's website and library. But coming out of MLS the unfortunate reality was that programming jobs are jobs that go to librarians with seniority. I would have had to man a reference desk for a decade. And that kind of advancement, where it isn't skill, but time spent warming a seat that gives you political power is just not for me.<p>Finally, it's not clear what the future of libraries will be. Fewer and fewer people are reading books. Libraries are very popular places, especially for children, but in many cases libraries are just places that have a computer or a meeting room. Public librarians don't seem to have an answer for what's to come.
It's nice to see DuckDuckGo mentioned at the end as on-par with Google, Siri, and OnStar. I'm a little surprised they mentioned DDG in the first place, as it doesn't have nearly the name recognition as Bing or Yahoo search.
So wouldn't the world be a better place for everyone if all the librarians in the world posted everything to a searchable quora/stackoverflow shared knowledge base? Instead of having knowledge fragmented and buried deep in places where people would have trouble finding.