Is the library catalog more difficult to use than google? Why? What is the difference in the results these two types of searches return?
Tim Donahue
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LIBR 121 Discussion Blog
This blog facilitates online class discussion for LIBR 121 - Electronic Library Research Skills. Each week a new topic and question will be posted by the instructor. Students will then add comments, addressing both the instructor's original post and comments posted by other students. The instructor may guide or change the discussion throughout the week.
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9 comments:
I think that the library catalog is much more difficult than using Google. On Google, all i need to do is type in my topic, and i get thousands and thousands of pages of results. On the library catalog, i need to try various keywords, and still get minimal results, usually only relating partially to my topic.
I would agree that it is more difficult to use the library catalog. You find a lot less results using the same keywords. For example, I used the search term "child soldiers" which returned 17 results in the MSU library catalog and over 474,000 hits on Google. But I think that the library catalog results can provide more information in one result than Google can. If you get a 300 page book regarding your subject via the library vs. a 1 page article about your subject from Google, you have more volume of information from the place that gave you less results. However if you are a really good searcher, you can probably compile a lot more information from Google in a shorter amount of time than finding books in the library catalog. In the end, it's all about what kind of researcher you are!
Mike Pasque
It was difficult for me to use library catalog than google. When I went through the catalog, I could hardly find the topic I am looking for and when I found it, I could get only little amount of information about my topic. But when I googled about my topic, i got a lot of links but most of them were very less related to my concern.
I would have to say that the library catalog is more difficult to use then google. Maybe if i knew more about the catalog it would be easier to use. But ive been using google since i can rememeber. Plus when i type in my topic in the library catalog i get very few information, on google i get loads of information. Basically it depends on what type of search engine youre more comfortable and have been using the longest.
The library catalog is definitely more difficult to use than google in my opinion. I had to toy with using all sorts of different keywords and topics and whatnot to find the results I wanted. Then, when I did, they were all books and ebooks which need to be checked out and read in full as opposed to google which provided me with very helpful, brief websites which are easy to read and cut right to the chase providing good information.
google is easier then the library catalog for vague searches throughout the internet, but the library catalog wins if you want to get an expert's opinion on a topic. While google grants you way more wells of information, the library catalog's sources are almost always more quality and allow you to get far more useful information from one source.
Having been raised with a library catalog, I don’t find it one bit cumbersome. It is certainly way better now with on line search engines capable of finding every thing in our library. But as has been stated then you need to physically retrieve the information and if you’re going to use it you must copy and rewrite (avoiding plagiarism). As everybody said, information is much scarcer on my topic using the library catalog than online resources. Online resources benefit at the least by the sheer volume of entries and the multitude of forms that a particular entry can be submitted in and retrieved. As much as I’m in love with the printed text that I can hold, the benefits for information research often fall to the electronic media and retrieval systems such as Google.
The library catalog is more difficult to use because you must narrow your keywords much more than google. I also enjoy google because it gives you immediate results instead of giving you the title only. The catalog is useful to find books for research in libraries across the country.
Michael Barrett
I am very used to using google. It is my main search engine of choice. The library catalog is set up very well to be used easily, but you do not get as big of a variety to choose from as google. Sometimes when you are searching on google, you see another web page under a different topic word that leads you to a different article.
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