Week 5 Searching Tools

Cataloging has always been viewed as the most boring class in the library science field. I have even been told by several SLMS essentially to "get ready to nap through that class." Despite its monotony, I can see through our activities in Computer Applications this week the importance that things like keywords, subject headings etc. have in regards to utility, accessibility, and general user-friendliness. This week we looked at searching tools, both on library website and general search engine tools, like Google. The amount of information available out in "cyberspace" is so vast its unimaginable. The task of organizing and making this information usable is quite daunting. Google has done some exciting new things lately. I really liked the Google Squared feature. It is in its early stages, but I can already see its potential as it makes searching for information on a certain topic a one-stop-shop process.
As an information specialist, I would hope to encourage students to access information from other sources such as books and databases. In order to get these students to do this on their own (instead of "googling" it), we need to make library search tools as user-friendly as possible. As was discussed in the discussion boards this week, perhaps keeping a simple search interface will help. But I believe demonstrating to students the quality of information that they can receive through library search tools as compared to Google searches will help to increase their information literacy skills.