As an information professional, I view staying up to date on search methods and how people find information as critical. It is also important to remember that asking a librarian or visiting a library (either online or in person) typically ranks low in the list of place people go for information. From what I’ve found in the literature, asking friends, family or colleagues is number one ¹, with  Internet search engines come in as a strong second. The personal connection still matters a great deal, a finding that needs to be kept in mind. This post is not meant to be exhaustive, but simply to note some of the main qualities of each search engine. As usual, readers are welcome to agree, disagree or otherwise comment in the comments section .

Google Search

Originally launched at Stanford University in 1997, Google Search has become the most popular search engine on the Internet. By one estimate released in the summer of 2009, Google Search is estimated to have performed about 77% of all searches in the US. Beyond search, Google offers a variety of interesting services – Google Maps, Google Scholar and Google Book Search are among my favourites.

Basic Interface: Simple and Spartan, Google Search has few options. After entering some text, one can choose “Google Search” or “I’m Feeling Lucky.” As far as I know, nobody uses the “I’m Feeling Lucky” option, though this playfulness does set Google apart from its competitors. As a test, I searched for my name using “I’m Feeling Lucky” and ended up at the blog which is a good result as far as I’m concerned. In the search results page, there is a very clear seperation between organic and paid search results which I notice and appreciate – I wonder if the average user does though?

Advanced Search: There are a number of good options here, but it is not as powerful and precise at search as resources like Factiva (news, mainly business focused) or Historical Abstracts (academic history articles, US and world). Useful options here include limit by file type (e.g. search only for PDFs – this is a good option if you are looking for more ‘formal’ documents, government documents and the like), Region (this should actually have “Country” since ‘region’ makes me think of provinces or states)

Evaluation: Still the best for many kinds of search and the company’s other non-search services (e.g. Maps) are very good indeed. The advanced search has some good features but leaves something to be desired.

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Thanks to Stephen Abram for blogging this chart from the Ruder Finn Public Relations Firm.

This is the over all chart; there are also versions for men, women, youth and seniors (based on a survey of 500 Americans). Rather than looking at specific websites or services, this type of study looks at what people are trying to achieve. In examining this chart, I wonder if there is some overlap between “learning” and “having fun”: these activities often overlap for me in particular. The demographic breakdown is also worth remarking on: 93% of men surveyed “go online to be entertained” (75% for women). On the other hand, 50% of  youth (“youth” is not defined here but I presume they are using one of the standard definitions such as 18-25 years old) “go online specifically to rage against a specific person or individual.” The study scores highly in my book for visual design but is a bit weak in terms of definitions and content – maybe those aspects are restricted to paying clients though.

Libraries have great strength in the learning department and often do well in community. If we want our patrons to stay with the Library, then we need to enrich our online presence. Can we combine learning with other intents such as “socialize” and “express yourself”? There are still a lot of cases where the digital presence of a library only allows one-to-one communication. In the academic library context, what about encouraging students to create bibliographies and reading lists online? Something like, “Here are the 15 books and 15 articles I used for my European history paper,” inspired by the Amazon Wishlist concept but better – allow other users to rate it, comment and share their lists too. I think this Internet-enabled drive to connect socially and learn is an important trend that continue to provide librarians with the opportunity to innovate.