Caveat Lector

I bailed on yesterday’s Googleization session at ACRL after about ten minutes. I’ve waited a day to blog about it, because it just made me angry.

“Google’s the end of the world!” “No it’s not!” “Yes it is!” “It rocks!” “It sucks!”

Can we all take a deep breath and grow up? Please?

The question is not whether Google’s interface is good or bad. The question is not whether Google is good or bad. The question is not even whether we should emulate the one-search-box design.

The question is, “What can we accomplish with one search box?” I submit that we in libraries don’t know the answer to that yet, because we’re barely trying. Aside from RedLightGreen, that is. We let our stupid bloody OPACs rot, acknowledging sheepishly that the last fifteen or so years’ worth of systems-design research has never made it into them, while we ask each other stupid bloody simplistic questions about whether Google is good or bad.

Gah. I haven’t got words. Just as well.

Anyway, I hopped upstairs to the session on new academic librarians, which turned out to be a blast and a half. The research itself wasn’t revolutionary (new academic librarians want respect, mentoring, professional development, and better pay—whooda thunkit?), but the discussion afterward turned out lively and engaging.

I’m going to pass on a bit of consciousness-raising: the ALA New Members’ Round Table has a mentoring program that needs experienced librarians to act as mentors for the newbies. There appear to be two types of mentors: conference mentors, and mentor mentors. Please get in touch with NMRT if you can help.

Yet again, by the way, I encountered consensus that the librarian job market utterly rots and the “librarian shortage” is a mirage. I know everyone’s tired of me harping on this, but I’ll keep harping on it until I see ALA backing off from its counterproductive recruitment efforts to focus on real help for existing new, unemployed, and underemployed librarians.

And to that end, I suggest a few additions to the ALA conference placement office:

• Paper as well as online job announcements. I saw folks posting ads on the main communications board.
• A bulletin board for résumés, in addition to the one for job announcements.
• Quiet space for interviews, with online and paper signups, and at least one table set aside for impromptu interviews. These conferences are loud and raucous; there’s no place quiet to go and talk.
• Cleaner, faster access to the online jobs list. From the main conference page, it’s at least five clicks and two scrolls to get there (and one must first guess that the link-chain starts from the “Overview” link). All these librarians, and ALA/ACRL can’t find an information architect anywhere?

Nothing major, really; just common sense.