Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Libraries try to fit into a Google world

This article talks about libraries acknowledging that lots of students, academics are increasingly searching for information using Google etc to write their papers. Some of the libraries around the world have started to work with the search engine companies to make their catalogues and collections available online.

An example is Carnegie-Mellon University, who have digitally scanned 1.6 million pages of archival material from the papers of Carnegie-Mellon scientists which are now searchable via Google. "Google has also indexed two million book titles through the Online Computer Library Center, which manages a database of catalogs from 12,000 libraries around the world."

The article mentions that there is still some way to go as a lot of information is also stored in electronic databases and so services like Google are not yet able to search these databases. Also some older, archival material is still only available in the hard copy collections of research libraries around the world.

W: http://news.com.com/Libraries+try+to+fit+into+a+Google+world/2100-1024_3-5241384.html?tag=st.rc.targ_mb