Oregon Legal Research Blog
Librarians have to think like their library patrons and this can be very difficult sometimes. But we do try. Non-attorney legal researchers, and some attorneys, also seem to think that “Everything is Online.” Not only is this not true, but even if it was true, a search engine isn’t necessarily the best way to find it.
From an interesting Sunday Times (UK) article (via Library Link of the Day) on the Google Unbound Conference:
‘“A search engine,” says John Sutherland, professor of English at UCL, “is not an index.” … An index is the work of a mind with knowledge, search engine results are the product of an algorithm with information. Parents will already have seen the power of the algorithm. Google has supplanted the textbook as the source of homework research.”