Is what librarians have done for decades the latest trend?

Thank you to George Needham over at It's all good for pointing me to this tidbit from Wired Magazine about the limitations of strictly algorithm-based online searching and the "latest trend" to incorporate the human touch into to the online search and information delivery process.

There's been quite a bit of press about this topic lately as new search services like the "human-powered search engine" Mahalo have come onto the market.  To be honest, I hadn't thought a whole lot about the implications for librarians other than to idly wonder how we could participate.

As I read the article in Wired, though, I began to steam.  It gives a number of examples of companies from fledgling start-ups to Google that have recognized that there is value in enhancing the Web with "the kind of critical thinking that's alien to software but that comes naturally to humans".

I have absolutely no problem with that concept.  What got me steamed was that EVERY example of how these companies are applying the "human touch" was something librarians do every day, and in most cases have done for at least 100 years!

Create bibliographies and webliographies?  Check.  "Curate" (i.e. select, organize, and display) information? Check.  Write reviews and abstracts? Check.  Interact with information-seekers to help them find exactly what they are looking for?  Check.

If this is the latest trend then we were 100 years ahead of the curve!  So why aren't we recognized for what we do?  Because we don't "sell" ourselves?  Because people don't recognize that our specialized training is necessary?  Your guess is as good as mine....so leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Comments

[Erik]

My guess is that it's a generational issue. A few generations spent the past few years making computer hardware and software more user-friendly and accessible due to it's potential benefits. Preoccupation with simple access in the technology world resulted in many good things including fast and small computers, massive digitization projects of source "analog" content, nifty number-crunching, word-matching algorithms among many other things. Now that technology has reached such a user-friendly point that my very young nephews and nieces can jump on a computer and access game sites, we have come full circle. The format of information is different, archival techniques have changed (with a plateau in the past few years from one disc to another) and people are benefitting from and appreciating the organization that was given to the analog source material by previous generations of librarians (think copy and paste metadata). The upcoming generations are faced with the organization of new digital information in a meaningful user-friendly way since they see the limitations of keyword matching and our current level of artificial intelligence. Now that information is available in new formats, people and organizations want to be involved - some for-profit, some non-profit. While my ALA-accredited Masters falls in line with the mission of "access to information for all" and my job fits within the workings of a non-profit (and since I'm still paying off that Masters), it's not my favorite notion that people are making more money for providing the same services/information in the for-profit world. Nevertheless, every generation of librarian has dealt with this issue and it's just more of the same in a digital environment. Future librarians need to be sure that in this new era of formats, control of digital or analog information does not become absolute since, as implied in "1984", "Brave New World" and other dystopias, book burning and scholar burying are not necessary in a digital world.