Friday 20 August 2004

The little search engine that did...

Playboy Interview: Google Guys
Good article. Long... but an interesting read. Although I am loathe to get too attached to any large company [they inevitably disappoint], Google seems to be a pretty good example to the corporate world, with their company motto "Don't be evil." And although now it's kinda stereotyped, it's still good to hear about billionaires who come to work in jeans and who actually enjoy their work and allow others to enjoy their work.

Didja notice the interviewers question about librarians? "Librarians must hate Google. Will you put them out of business?" Topical question... a lot of people often think this, but annoying just the same. Although Google does make searching for a lot of kinds of information easier and faster, it doesn't do everything and will never be able to do everything. At least not anytime soon. And although Mr. Brin is right when he says librarians like and use Google, sometimes I think librarians [and everybody else] use Google too much. There are just some things Google should not be used for. If Google ever does "replace" librarians, it would be because librarians have not made their usefulness obvious to enough people.

2 comments:

andiepoo said...

Why can't it be librarians using Google technology? You know, maybe scan passages, so you can search keywords and stuff...

Matt said...

Hey, we DO use google, but just like in any profession, you shouldn't use one tool to the exclusion of all else. That would be like a doctor saying, "I love tongue depressors, I love them so much and they are so useful that I'm going to use them all the time!" That's fine if all the doctor's going to do is check your throat but I don't want to see him in the operating room with a tray full of sharpened tongue depressors, getting ready to remove my appendix! Ideally, we could all have google implanted in our brains like data is in the Matrix. Sweet.