Despite the "democratization" of search, information needing industries still employ professionals: librarians, information managers, researchers, etc. The need for reliable and quality information exists now as much as it did in the early 1990s. Moreover, online information is locked up in the deep web and databases that Google doesn't have access to. Information for which universities, business, and other organizations pay billions of dollars. I appreciate Google for what it can and can't do. However, the idea that Google has democratized reliable and quality information is a farce. Also the idea that the untrained individual can be a skilled searcher through only Google is a farce.

It's great to get local results when I want a restaurant. But when I'm doing research on Google, for what it has to offer, making location the determinant of results is a disaster. If I'm searching for information about insurance fraud rings in Ohio, for example, putting Ohio in the search string does not prevent my state's stories from populating the top results. And I agree completely that using Google doesn't train people to be skilled searchers and Google doesn't offer easy access to the information available online that experts can locate.

http://www.against-the-grain.com/TOCFiles/20-2_Klein.pdf

The link is to an article I wrote that was published in "Against the Grain," April 2008. While I concede that Google is the most comprehensive search engine for Government information discovery, what you find depends on where you search, what you are searching for and how you are searching.

The idea that people will do the search themselves--that it'll democratize the whole thing and you don't have to go to a professional--that's the revolution.

Then why do I still have frustrated students, faculty, and patrons coming to me for help because they couldn't find something using Google? ;-)