Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Librarian As Hacker, Getting More From Google, R Philip Reynolds

Librarian and Staff Publications

This paper will cover four areas. First it will discuss the research habits of search engine users and some of the problems with these habits. Then it will discuss librarians' use of search engines. Here we encounter the real question: Do we do much better? Can we use a search engines to their full potential? When needed, can we hack an engine to make it perform beyond its intended function? Can we use a clever workaround to solve a problem? Or are we on a level playing field with our patrons once we get outside traditional database searching? Google currently …