ILA 2010 The Googlization of Everything – Should We Care?

Siva Valdhyanathan – “The Googlization of Everything: How One Company is Disrupting Culture, Commerce, and Community, and Why We Should Care."

Copyrights, Copywrongs. The Anarchist in the Library.

Google is 12 now. It “got” the web in way no one had back then. Tamed the chaos.

Now—It is the largest, richest advertisement company in the world. Unmatched processing power, banwidth (beyond governments). Has computational capacity that could never have been predicted.

A Dangerous Level of Dependence

We are dependent on it. Daily habits, expectations---the lens through which we discover the world.

Missed opportunities, crowding out of other ways, we settle for what we get for free. We ned to imagine better ways of doing things. We are in the unfortunate situation where people prefer Google to the library—at least, those too rich to need to go to libraries. Google's imperitive is to enhance shareholder investment.

Should they be regulated? We don't do it well enough. Copyright, antitrust, privacy laws regulate it.

3 Levels of Content Delivery:

Search: “Rank & Link,” 3rd-party servers searched, ranked, linked. Businesses thrive & fail on this. There should be more transparency, though.

Host & Deliver: Gmail, YouTube, Blogger, Buzz—all have strong competitors. But Google has created its own universe from which trumps often better competitors. Power users must register to create & use content.

Capture & Serve: Street View, Earth, Book Search, Maps, etc. Google-izing the world.
Google Wants a Single Standard – It is the government of the web. It has been in trouble over Youtube videos, one in Itally of a young man being bullied. Highest level of responsibility. Street View breaks this. In trouble in Germany for this. The general exemption from intermediary liability applies more to the Search than especially the 3^rd, but also the 2^nd. “Notice and Takedown” is not good enough. Google is more a network than a conduit. Google wants to be held to a low level of responsibility. They make up for the failure of public institutions. Corporate responsibility—Whole Foods steps in to a gapwhere the food industry is killing us. Walmart stepping in to deliver water to New Orleans, saving thousnads of lives.n It shouldn't have come to that. Are we so weakened that Google is digitizing our books rather than all public institutions steeping in to do this better and for the benefit of all?

Nancy Kranich – “The Googlization of Libraries: Should We Care?”

Is Google a Library?

Siva's question.

The Google Generaion is all of us. Simple, fast, 24-7. No more information literate than those who came before. Generation doesn't know the meaning of information they find. Study after study shows they prefer simple searching vs advanced, assume search engines understand queries, and find it difficult to develop effective search strategies. Younger people aren't visiting libraries in person. 89% of college students begin through Google or something like it. 2% at libraries (OCLC). How people learn about this information is usually not from us.

Think everything's on the web. And super-fast. Citations are DOA, would have to walk and get the article. No focus on privacy. No evaluation.

Evaulation – Young people cannot research, spend very little time on checking its accuracy, authority, lack of bias. Critical thinking is also lost. Safe libraries is a good example of a bad website.

Most collect information, hardly reading & digesting. Download, save, print out the information. Don't even use much of it.

Libraries – People are intimidated by them. The library is full, but the desk is empty. Often kids head to the public library instead of the academic desk.

Website – It is a gate that keeps people out. Per our organizational structure, despite what the user wants, how they will look for information. Simplify. One click access. Make it visible to Google. Open ourselves up to the net.

They Don't Understand Collections – Important to be where users are, but have to be useful.

Help Learners Get the Tools to Evaluate and Use Information: Librarians are not about “search” anymore. Must reorient to where users really need us. We should focus on evaluating and using, giving people the skills and guidance to help with what people find. We must help the overwhelmed navigate and critically assess the overwhelming torrent of news and information. Knowledge creation.

Libraries Must – make the Google Generation as knowledgable in how to evaluate as they are in using the tools.

Libraies – Don't bombard you with ads, unlike Google. One of the few places we are not used, seduced, tempted...every user is not a consumer. We are a public instution, not a firm.

Catalyze – Ratehr than being a system, we have a bigger impact in being this sanctuary. We have changed their lives for the better.

IBM & Microsoft were regulated. Will Google? These companies intersect very little. Will Google exist in 12 years? Will it be different? Less a creative force as it becomes a company driven purely by profit? Will the gated communities like Facebook demolish it? Will Apples Apps take away attention? Google books has only been going for 6 years. Too much responsibility for a company that may disappear. Blind faith is a bad idea. We navigate the world successfully with help from each other (librarians), not technology. First result is good for shopping, not learning. Google datamines and pulls up top results by what we'll buy – Wisconsin “Green” search brings up 8 Green Bay Packers sales sites.

Information Literacy – What is a better term for it? Libraries must partner with schools and other community organizations to figure this out.