Slashdot Mirror
Putting Google to the Test
Big Nothing writes "Google has built its reputation on being the fastest and most accurate way to find information. But is the internet really the quickest way to access facts - and get them right? The Guardian puts Google to the test against more old-fashioned methods."
google knows it all, face it
... if they googled for the results...
To win radio trivia call in contests a few years ago. Using Google to answer trivia just like in Ghost World.
We all know it's the best search engine, the best way to find anything - be it unit conversion, or stalking your ex, or finding pr0n on the image search!
-Imidazole2
Great comparison but they don't take into account how long it takes to get to the library, phone charges, etc. For me, 15 minutes on Google is faster than 30 seconds at the library.
Instead of comparing them against each other, its more important to use both internet based as well as "old fashioned" resources together. Its important to realize that hard backed enyyclopedias are better than google and wikipedia for some things, and not for others. The younger generation needs to learn how to recognize what source to use, instead of automatically going to google. The internet should not replace old fashioned resources but merely embrace them.
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
What is this li-brar-ee thing you speak of? That must have been where people accessed the internet before computers...
That none of the questions included something likey what is the maximum sustainable speed in Mb/s of the alcatel 8100 series router
Thats the stuff where Google with kick everyones trash, not complete list of authorships
He didn't count the time it took for him to leave his office and drive to the library. So add another 20 minutes to all of the library times.
what kind of information do you need? must it be credible?
does the user like the kind of information you usally get on the web...
is the query good?
what is searched for (what area)
etc... I usually find what I need when using google, my mum doesn't :)
greets,
kodo
I'd have to say that google deliberately alters certain rankings. The proof is when you do a google search for search engine. By almost any measure of page rank google would have to be listed first, but it is not. This means that google deliberately lowered their rankings. It makes sense that if you searched for a search engine on google, they've already got you and it doesn't really matter at what position they rank themselves. But by doing so they can potentially shield themselves from antitrust issues, and help hide the likely fact that for other categories they do alter the rankings for their advantage. Up and coming competitors in other arenas than search can be quietly disposed of if no-one can find them.
This article assumes that the person looking for information already knows other means of finding information. I didn't know about the Who's Who book and even if I did, I might not have one handy. I think these results are a little less than accurate for most people. Also, the author directly phones some people. What if I don't know exactly who to phone? I think Google will win in that case.
... is YES. Books on, say, Napoleon, you can find in a library. But ever tried to find, say, ten pages, or even a paragraph, about Napoleon? Especially in a 1200+ page book, or several? Ever tried looking something up in a card catalog? Or finding one sentence in a huge book? The answer to the question in the article is a definite YES.
I just memorize everything I ever read. Unless they can develop supercomputers that predict future questions and beam them directly into your brain, my neural functions will be quite a bit faster.
It does have its drawbacks. Memorizing a girl's vitals, including SS#, after glancing at her driver's license, has yet to net me her phone number. *That* I usually have to google for.
How does the "Library" provide sub two minute results? The article doesn't say.
or did they..? :-)
With just a wee bit of ai built into google you cannot expect it to answer questions like those.Of course given a little time goofle will manage to pull it up.
Lord of the Binges.
The library may have presented quick results for some things, but they didn't take into account the 30mins it takes me to drive to the library to find the answer, turn around and come home... And most of the friends I would phone to find these things out aren't Journalists or politicians!!
This reminds me, has anyone here used Google Answers, and if so what was the result? I'm assuming that their researchers use resources other than the internet.
In some of the questions, Google was beat to the answer but even up to 8 min, but I would honestly spend an extra 8 min looking through google results, then drive to my nearest library
The Digital Couture Collection
The comparison dosent seem to be so much as google / other means - its more of an Online V/s Offline means to search for specific stuff.
I think its wrong to brand Google as the only means to look for information online.
Secondly, the issues that the reviewer raises are also adhoc - they cant be used to generalise the entire deal / spectrum of infomation that people need / want / desire.
Try looking for a code sample that shows you how the GTK# can be used from Mono to display a Multi level Outline filelist. What are the options that you have for this in the Non - Online world ?
The guy already knew who to ask / who to talk to - what if you dont know that - what then ? how do you go about finding the best non-online resource to speak with / enquire from ? My guess is that you are going to be heading right back online.
What about the fact that the online resources / google are avilable to you when you want it - how you want it and where you want it. Ever looked up what a word from the bible meant in the middle of sunday mass at the local church using a Wap phone over gprs at wml.google.com ? Me neither....
I bet those who he/she called, immediatly fired up google to find the answer ;)
Google is much faster than just about anything. I wonder if that guy even knew how to use quotes or -'s
These are just times for the homeless guy living behind the library who hangs out there all day harrassing patrons and looking up porn on the library computers.
For people who have computers and access at home, the internet has many sources. The web is not the whole internet, nor is google the whole web.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
After reading the article, I feel there is a slight bias in favour of the libraries when looking at the questions. Of course a library has a master index of books of one author. Or - to find out about some very specific question about an event you immediately know what kind of journals to look in.
The only question really geared for search engines was the Thatcher quote (as that would be a full text search).
Would this be the time to create a true categorisation of questions to be used in comparisons? (Note - not the ACTUAL questions, so that search engines could optimise for them, but only specify the general direction of questions).
I admit, it would be pretty hard to do, but I guess it could be worth the effort...
I realize you're kidding, but for almost half a year I just didn't have Internet at home at all and instead used the library. I recall reading something by a book publisher stating that the Internet has been good for business partially because public workstations increase library traffic from people who would otherwise stay home and just watch TV.
Member of Orkut? Annoyed with spam?
as they don't test it against other search engines.
Besides, you search pr0n images. Welcome to the 21st century, start finding pr0n movies! (10 gigs and counting, all shared)
Speaking of accurate results, I recently tried to get info on 'johan svendsen', a composer circa 1880s from norway.
Google results are completely hacked for this search phrase, all the top results are links to random sites trying to sell you CDs. Since I wasn't searching for some pop musician, I didn't expect to get this type of result. Maybe time to reconsider getting in on that IPO...
Steve Browning http://www.sbrowning.com
When considering the merit of convential research vs. Google, consider how much time it takes to get to and from the library and/or play phone-tag with receptionists.
o J: dmiessler.com/study/google/+dmiessler.com+google&h l=en
To me, and probably most others, time is of the essence when doing searches. Getting a 10% better result in 10% of the cases, at the expense of valuable time, is *not* worth it.
Google is the way, and here's my soon to be revised guide (shameless) to using it more effectively:
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:PApKy9D-R4
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
Google doesn't fare that well in a lot of areas. In the test they ran it through goodle faired about equal to the library. Google mat have more searches on technical data but many things such as history the library is a much better source.
What this shows is that google isn't the know all. That when all things are considered there are other places to look for information and some may be better sources. Like the right tool for the right job that is the same here. There is no end all tool.
Evolution or ID?
This article, while interesting, failed to mention several other aspects that, at least for me, make google the best source.
:).
1 When using the phone, there are really two searches. The one you care about, and the one before that where you try to find the correct phon number. This can take quite a while in some instances.
2 I have to leave my house (which could entail getting dressed, which adds more time) and drive 4 minutes to the library. Once I get my online library account through the county, however, this will no longer be a factor
3 I actually have to have a conversation with someone on the phone. Google can be a more private experience, which depending on what I'm searching for, can allow me to better focus on finding the information I need.
4 With google and the library, I can have multiple searches running at once. With the phone, I'd have to pay extra per search.
5 With the library and phone, I can only use them during business hours. I can use Google 24/7.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
The article report compare between Google, Phone and Library.
I think this is a biase comparison.
In the phone and library search, it is assumed upon a narrowed subject or particular topic. Where the searcher knows where to look for the _authorative_ answer, for example the title of the particular book to get the answer.
Overall, I think the winner is pretty inconclusive, but it still does shows that Google is a really good search engine - where you can actually find a reasonable result.
Hey, that's my password you are typing
While I realize the story was meant to be a bit tongue in cheek (Calling up friends and such) it saddens me that people assume search engines will work with any old garbage in and hold them to the results given from such searches. Obviously this guy knows the exact right questions and places to query in the library; that sort of knowledge only comes from experience. Unfortunately he hasn't once actually read the advanced search modifiers help for the search engine he is comparing with other mediums where he has much more experience and insight.
For me this again shows the superiority of the present day search engines, you can throw crap in 'em without bothering to check if it is the best way to search for that engine and still almost always beat any other popular method for finding information.
--- I do not moderate.
OK this is completely ridiculous. For the library they don't even take into account finding the right book you will find this data in, this could even take you hours if you're not familiar with any encyclopedias.
The first question for example: they find almost all the books using google in slightly over 2 minutes. Which is a good result. But then the library result 20sec. Ok fine, but does that take into account, going to the library, finding the book (if you even now that you need Who's Who for starters). I mean google is simple you fire up you browser and type away. Given you still need to verify your information but it still beats driving to the library.
Also to me Google is an easy way to find any type of information, not just on one specific topic. Which is a definit pro.
The methods all have their uses. I don't use google find old classical music scores, but I don't use the library to find recent news stories, software, and such. There's a use for all these things, and it's important to preserve it all.
:-)
There's nothing that beats human interaction and direct knowledge in many cases, but people are not there all the time. If I had them right at me, I wouldn't need google. Google (and the library) is a compilation of what a bunch of people once knew, worked on, built further on, et cetera. Now, since it's impossible to reach these people, we wrote books. Books that we can read, to learn what people found out. That has it's value. Now, we can find the book, read about it, even read it, using google, or we could find other information rapidly that the library won't have for a long time - at least not before the next day's newspaper.
After all, the library might even have their search engine against a GoogleServer in the back room
Final point: Cherish all sources of knowledge, and use them appropriately. That will give you the best results.
Like you said, you didn't know the other places to search for things. My kid sister has the same problem. She doesn't know other places to find information other than the web. This is a shortcoming we now have because we rely to much on one source and grew up doing it.
As far as looking for the information in places other than the net, I found my mom knows all those places and where to find things quickly without the web or google.
Evolution or ID?
I'm a researcher with Google Answers and it's never a must that we use Google to answer questions that come in. Actually, for one-off's and questions which I know can be answered with a phone call or two, I won't even bother with the internet. Of course, then again, there was that one time I called over a hundred different restaurants to see who was serving on Christmas Day. Hah.
-Christopher Wu
http://www.christopherwu.net/
So the article is assuming people have internet connections in their home. If they don't, they're out of luck with Google. The library is open to everyone. (Perhaps they could use Google at the library, assuming it isn't censored).
Google
1min 17sec (1st)
1,201 km (499 km of which is electrified). I type "percentage" as well as "Slovenian railway system" and "electrified". Google isn't playing with that combination at all, so I take out "percentage" and separate "Slovenia". Scanning the results, I choose a site I've visited before: the CIA World Factbook, Washington's greatest gift to the web. I am prepared to trust the CIA on Slovenia. For the time being, anyway.
Verdict: The higher figure attained over the phone may be more up to date
Phone
1hr 4min 5sec (2nd, after disqualification of Stephen Moss)
It's 5pm in Slovenia by the time I begin and according to Bo, at the embassy in London, Slovenians go home at 5pm. Sure enough, when I call Bo's number for Slovenian Rail, the phone rings unanswered. So I call him again. He puts in a few calls. I wait. Then he calls back: it's 60-65%, equivalent to 1,200km of track. He stresses that this information is provisional, but I owe Bo a beer.
Verdict: Slow, but perhaps likely to be the latest and most accurate information
Google took 1 minute 17 seconds, with an answer of 1,201km. The verdict is the LARGER number produced by phone is more accurate. Phone's answer: 1,200 roughly (60-65%) and took 1h 5m. It's a smaller number, a rough guess, and took over an hour! How is the phone more accurate again?
Question 3: Who is the vice chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on back care?
Google - 6min 27sec (3rd)
Quote: "Unfortunately, "back" is rather a common word, and is turning up in all sorts of irrelevant documents..."
Entering "back care" in quotation marks got me the answer in 25 seconds, much less than either of the "offline" sources. If they're going to have an accurate test, at least make sure the person performing it knows how to use a search engine.
Or maybe I'm wrong; maybe most people don't have these basic searching skills, in which case the test is accurate after all?
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
I would think it would take 5 mins just to find the phone number to the library, get some one to answer the phone and then explain the question, PLUS have them search for answer. This also would all depend on the library you call. Google is google no matter where you live, but not every library is staffed when the same people.
"Google (and the entire internet) are accessible from the comfort of our homes"...assumes ubiquitous home internet access. Not necessarily true for all now, or for some time to come.
That none of the questions included something likey what is the maximum sustainable speed in Mb/s of the alcatel 8100 series router
This is an uncommon question for your average person. It is even an uncommon type of question. They are looking at more common questions your average user would ask. That is a better test. If you know this question you probubally don't even need to search google but can go directly to the site.
Evolution or ID?
Just found out that it was only a time-limited license I had on mine, so now I hafta go look for a more compliant version =/
Maybe the should have included an online encyclopedia, such as Wikipedia, in the investigation as well.
I believe in using the right tool for the job. If you are in the middle of something at work or at school and need to check on a fact real quick, use Google. If you are doing in-depth research on a topic, you are probably better off first going to the library because it's easier to determine the quality of your source material there. Afterwards, you can supplement with a bit of Googling and you'll probably know whether your search results are useful or pure hogwash. The phone call method? Use that if you're lonely.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
For example, on Question 3, "Who is the vice chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on back care?", which took the Googler 6 min, 27 sec, all I did was put "vice chairman" "all-party parliamentary group" "back care" into Google, and got one PDF (well, two, but they were the same).
Instead of loading the PDF (or being confused), I viewed it as HTML, searched for "back care", and had the name of the Vice Chairman (labelled as V.Ch.), Janet Dean, MP. 20 seconds.
But if you search google for "vice chairman" "all-party parliamentary group" "back care" you only get two results which are actually for the same document - an alphabetical list of all-party groups. Scroll down to back care and there's your answer. Why would that would take six and a half minutes?
Why not go to the library and use the computer in the corner to google ?
That reminds me of an old movie starring Spencer Tracy and Audry Hepburn about a computer replacing a fact research department...
I am a developer, searching stuff with Google is faster than hitting help and search using the MSDN libs.
The google dude didn't have to leave his home or pick up the phone. Fat-assification and no need social interaction are clear advantages of google...
If you know how to use a library you can find information fairly easily. The hardest part is walking to the different sections. Students today have such a hard time with librarys that my college put a video together for every incoming student and part of a required course teaches you how to find things at a library. There are many different ways. Librarys are a lot more than jsut books, you just have to know how to use it.
Just like there are many computer illiterates, there are library illiterates. They know the basics but not how to really harness the power
Evolution or ID?
Seriously, though, with the libraries being such good competition, this begs the question: are library electronic "card files" available over the internet? If not, why not? I know that when I was at UC Berkeley years ago, you could telnet into their GLADIS and MELVYL systems remotely to do "card" searches...
The CB App. What's your 20?
I've often said that I'd have to quit programming if Google ever disappeared. I lean on it for information in the same way that excessively using a calulator will lead you to punching in 1 + 1. In fact, I'm so good at it that people sometimes think I'm a genius problem solver, when really it's just a matter of creative googling on an error message.
The meek shall inherit the earth, in 3 by 6 plots. - Lazerus Long
I've searched thru my brain for all these questions and came back with the answer in less than 1 second!!! Nothing can beat that!
.
.
.
BTW, the answer is 42.
I mean, say you want to know all about Ninjas, well just type "ninja" in Google, hit "I'm feeling lucky" and bam, 100% accurate, documentable information.
Isn't this the whole premise behind the old movie, "Desk Set," where a research librarian's job is endangered by the newfangled Computer?
[
I'm rather critical of 'facts' I see on the net, as I assume is the case with most people.
/. I've noticed that most of the "moderators on crack" comments typically refer to the abuse of 'informative' mod points.
On
Funny, insightful and interesting are generally applied without harsh criticism which means to me that the comments contain information that is safe to digest, making those comments the informative ones. Seems rather ironic.
If you're at home and trying to research this information, they also need to acommodate how long it takes to 1) pick up the phone and call, 2) Log on the computer to google.com 3) Get in your car and/or drive/walk to the library.
one important thing to keep in mind is that there are some things I might want to know that I don't want to ask my librarian.
"Ma'am can you help me find a book on STDs?, thanks"
I found the answer to the question 3 in about 30 seconds, well under the 6m 27s quoted by their researcher. It's clear from their comments about irrelevant pages that they hadn't enclosed 'back' in quotes to form "back pain", as '"back care" parliamentary group' puts the result on the third link (from google.co.uk). Also, it doesn't seem very fair to compare a researcher who doesn't think to use quotes round that expression with a librarian who knows to look "on page 242 of the excellent Vacher's Quarterly", a publication with which I (and most of the public, I would imagine) have no familiarity whatsoever.
I understand that it's important to establish where one's time and effort would yield the most accurate data, but do we really need to know "who won"? If I really want to find out as much information as possible about a given topic of research, I'm going to use data from as many sources as possible to not only glean data, but to corroborate the information obtained from each standalone source.
All in all, I think the winner here is consumers. Google may not be perfect, and they might be intentionally modifying the results to promote/demote certain company sites, but it's still the quickest way to find the most widely-available information on the web.
Who is the vice chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on back care?
;-)
Google came last in their test, with a time of 6 minutes and 27 seconds. I decided to recreate their test (before knowing what the answer was). I entered.. "vice chairman" "parliamentary group" "back care"
First response, scrolled down a few pages till I saw 'back care' highlighted.. found the name, Janet Dean. Less than a minute! These people are not very good at their Google
Google is not some magic research machine. The person is the magic research machine, who uses Google as a tool. Just like "Do It Yourselfers" at home use the same hammers and saws that carpenters do.. but make a crappier job of it.
... embrace and extend them.
This isn't a comparison of anything...
The library searches don't include travel time. They also appear to only count the time it takes you to read the text in the book... not to:
a) Find WHAT book you want (Card catalog?)
b) Locate the book on the shelf
c) Find the correct page
All those things take the MOST amount of time, not reading the actual text. This is assuming that you KNOW what book you're looking for to begin with. I had no idea Who's Who would be a good place to look for the answer to the author's books. Google would have given me the answer pretty quickly without the need to know that information. How much more time would it have taken to find out Who's Who is the book you wanted?
Add on top of the fact that I'd have had to drive ot the library, and the time increases dramatically.
Calling a friend? Maybe faster, but I don't have many friends that would know answers like that... nor do I have the number to railway stations on speed dial... especially those in other countries.
Google is simply the fastest AND most convenient method to find the information. Or at least, if not Google, SOME search engine. If you're already at the library and KNOW what book you want, it might be a better choice, but seriously, how often does that happen? How often do you sit at the library and think of things you want to know?
I don't... I'm usually sitting at home reading, or surfing the web and come across something I want to know more about. Driving to the library to find that information would be ludicrous... and calling my friends regularly with mundane questions would cause me to lose what little outside life I already have.
Bleh... this isn't even an aritcle worth reading... jeez.
... sorry about the monologue
Note:
Do not mention meta-tags of pages linked to the result pages. According to Google, these are not used to return results, only to rank them. Pages containing the phrase linking to pages returned in the results have nothing to do with the actual results being returned (according to Google)
"tobeornottobe" is an erroneous return for "To Be Or Not To Be". "go ogle" is not google. "Now Here" is not nowhere.
I did use quotes around the search. Typically, someone says "use quotes and it works" and gets modded insightful. Neither the person nor the moderators bother to try the search to see that it produces error results with quotes around it.
Yes they were able to get the required information from the library, but the only way to confirm that the data was accurate was to compare it to a known "up-to-date" source.
If I used the encyclopedia that was available in my High School library (in 1983) I would have learned that because of the recent Sputnik launch that man would someday walk on the moon.
Try calling Piers Morgan's press office at 4:00am. I bet your friend James won't appreciate you calling him when he's just sat down to dinner. The Library is a very poor information source when it's closed.
Google would beat any of those methods 'out of hours'.
MacBook Pro. Worst name since the Bicycle
A search for biography "johan svendsen" yields plenty of results.
Putting moderation advice in your
Thats the stuff where Google with kick everyones trash, not complete list of authorships
Could you try again, in English this time? What on earth do you mean?
Researchers know how to use a library like you know how to use Web, i.e. they have all the information at their fingertips. To an expert researcher, "looking up the who's who" involves reaching behind them, pulling the who's who out of the shelf, and skimming to the right page, all within 20 seconds.
Likewise, if you're a reseacher, you'll know that the Times publishes the Court calendar every day, and you'll have a stack of the week's papers in front of you. Much faster than trying to find out if the court circulars are now printed on the internet, and if so, where.
Just because you're a know-it-all geek that knows how to work the web efficiently (e.g. look up IMDB for movies, Amazon for books, how to formulate a good Google query) it doesn't mean everybody is an expert. There are people who are as flummoxed at teh Intarweb as you are flummoxed by libraries.
The Guardian contest was three experts (Google expert, well-connected "I know who to call expert", expert librarian) against each other.
They need to include the search Keywords they used for each of the Google Searches, or how they refined their results as they used it. Sure you can claim to "test" google's power, but if you dont know how to properly use even the most basic search abilities ("quotes", +, -, etc..) then the productivity numbers you measure google by will be wildly inaccurate.
The one doing the library searches knew the books needed. That may work for a librarian or reporter, but most anyone else would have to spend some time browsing the book, looking in the catalog, or talking to the refernce librarian to find the book that would have the relevant data. Whereas Google can't be missed (never heard anyone says "WRONG GOOGLE! ;).
Also, who but a reporter would have such a wide selection of friends to call on for stupid questions.
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
no, but it is the quickest way to find a source that is not reputable and meets your point of view so that you can post stupid links to it claiming that it is proof you are correct.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Was the google searching on broadband or 56k? Heck... 56k.. who am I kidding? Most places your lucky to get over 40k, and with the site / ad intensive sites today...
Anyone want to car pool to the library?
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
... TMTOWTDI
I'll NEVER go to the library again.
:)
It took me FOREVER to find a single book on "extraterrestrial worlds" when searching through the stacks.
note: extraterrestrial worlds = 999 in the Dewey Decimal classification system.
This is not my sig.
Google search criteria: 'UK +"vice chair" +parliament + "back care"'
Results 1 - 9 of about 10 for UK + "vice chair" +parliament +"back care". (0.24 seconds)
First page presented was http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/ pa/cm/cmparty/memi135.htm which takes you directly to the Back Care Group, where we find that Janet Dean (Labour) is listed as Vice Chair.
Perhaps the testers don't know how to use Google?
"values of beta will give rise to dom!"
(not 100% sure on this, but a fairly safe bet). The "library" used for the searches would be the Guardian's own library which would specialise in the information that a newspaper would be likely to want to know. The library searcher was probably the head librarian! If that couldn't beat Google for the sort of seaches that were requested, there would be some questions to ask about how well the librarian was suited to that job.
... for weapons of mass destruction.
:-)
Sorry, couldn't resist
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
you could also say that "driving to the library" assumes you have a car. So for the time to take a bus to the library, add an hour instead.
I would postulate that the intersection of Set A (the people without internet access) and Set B (people without a car) is fairly large, so that the number of people without internet access doesn't significantly skew the average.
I tried using Google to find true-love but it never returned anything.
Well, this isn't a very good test. Really what we learned is how effective one individual can be using google compared to other methods. Even then the tests didn't try to see how this applied to different kinds of information or how these results may have different from a group perspective. Worse still, the results for the author's first question makes me question if the author knew the answers ahead of time and had no way to call a result 'correct' or otherwise.
Also, more comprehensive searches at a library could involve actually having to visit the library... with it's associated drive time.
A good test would have had more questions, more participants and questions selected for a vareity of information types. The premise of the article I think is interesting: what kinds of research is the net really good for? Other than porn, of course, which is a given (try not finding it).
The problem with Google (et al) isn't finding information: it's finding reliable information (for most subjects). There's a hell of a lot of noise out there.
Cheers!
SCB
Google has some other advantages that phoning and the Library don't have:
1. Google is pretty much 'always on'. I can do a Google search any time of day where as I can't use the phone or the library at 3 am.
2. The ability to Find a keyword. Usually when I use a google search I use the google cache. This highlights the terms I am looking for so I can find them easily on the page. This is an inherent advantage of the computer over people or your eyes - scanning through text looking for what you really want.
humble and proud of it.
Libraries are expensive dinosaurs. All information in book or journal form should be digitized and put on the internet.
There is absolutely no comparison when it comes to low priority information - things you're curious about but aren't willing to spend any significant amount of effort to locate. This is where internet resources really shine; you can quickly obtain little bits of useless information with minimal effort. Of course, I think all of the examples in that article fall into this category, and the times listed were a bit skewed by the author's inability to use a search engine, endless lists of telephone contacts, complete knowledge of the contents and locations of almost everything in the library, and ability to travel to the library and the appropriate volume at the speed of light, but that's already been discussed...
An hour or so ago I overheard some people talking about a joke involving the three phases of sex and something about hallways. I suppose I could have walked over and asked them to tell the joke, but instead I was able to find it in a few seconds using Google. Imagine asking a librarian for that piece of information...
Looks like a few people in the paper had an argument about what is the best way to research something. They turned it into an article and got paid to "win" the bet.
As far as the nitpicking over search methods, big deal this is fluff where YMMV is obvious.
How about a meaningful comparison of electronic data retrieval services?
Compare Google to Lexis-Nexis.
Lexis-Nexis has boolean logic driven search (not natural language), and lacks "PageRank", but it includes all sorts of major periodicals not offered and certainly not archived on the web.
Lexis-Nexis would win hands down in all sorts of categories of questions.
It's an object lesson in the impact of intellectual property laws on access to information in our societies.
Apples and Oranges
Google doesn't find information nor was it designed to. It finds websites. Big difference. Fundamental difference. Understand what I'm saying and you'll undergo a religious experience.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Someone at the library, card catalog, or computer terminal?
And how did they get to the library and search for the answer to "Question 3: Who is the vice chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on back care?" in say 1min 16sec? Do the British have Star Trek-styled teleportation devices?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
"Besides, half the fun of researching in the library is the irrelevant but interesting information you stumble across as you browse!"
I get same experience on Google. One of my favorite things, after I got what I wanted, is to click on the higher numbered search pages and see what unusual results it also pulled up.
This is from a guy who, as a kid, used to pause constantly while looking a word up in the dictionary because I kept stumbling onto words I didn't know before.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
As it has been said previously, I do believe that results -- and even comparisons -- should be put into proportion. By this, I mean one should imagine them in terms of "real-life" situations. To begin with, I would say it depends on the question you are asking. Whereas one might be asking some "pub quiz" questions, or collecting information for the writing of an essay, a lot of the time, one might just be asking oneself a banal question, or searching for information which would not truly be classified as general knowledge. (I have a few examples to demonstrate this. The other day, I heard a song on a radio but did not hear the title, though I had a few lyrics in mind, and a short search on Google allowed me to find the title of the said song thanks only to the few lyrics I had remembered; also, my father wanted to find the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling, and just typing 'poem if' on Google allowed us to find the poem in less time than it takes to pronounce its author's name.) I think that for these kind of searches, there really is no reference faster and more efficient than Google.
Other than the question one is asking, I also think one should look at the speed, and cost, of the various solutions to obtain the answer to the question being asked. Firstly, I shall consider Google (which, in the article, has never taken more then 7 minutes to find an answer). I believe most people nowadays benefit of a broandband connection, so for those it is a simple matter of going to Google and typing the search query. For those who are still surfing with a classic modem, then I would think the matter of turning on the computer, connecting to the Internet, going to Google and searching would take no more than five minutes. As for the results Google provides itself, I think in this domain, Google does not have such a reputation for no reason. It should take no more than five minutes to find a persistant answer to a question among the provided results. Next, I think added to the time it takes to phone the person is the time it takes to research a good source which can provide an answer to the question. Obviously, also to be counted is the subsequent capability of the person at the other end of the line to search for the answer. Overall, this may vary but it can come more slowly, costly, and I would think less practical, than a Google search (I say less practical because you may copy, paste and print the resulting pages of a Google search). Finally, as it has been said, added to the time of the library is the time it is taked to get there, and the efficiency of the staff working there. Should one not live very close to a good library, driving the distance also adds to the cost.
In my opinion, I would say that in terms of speed, cost, and of course results to one's query, it is hard to find a better traditional alternative to Google. What is more, the results can be handled in a more practical way. Also, the search engine is suited to both serious and more banal queries.
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect" -- Linus Torval
It seems to me Google held its own against resources most people wouldn't even have.
The author, being a reporter on a major newspaper, has contacts he can ask questions to that the average Joe surely does not. Our efforts at getting these answers via phone would almost certainly fail, and the library is a 10min drive away. If you add the 20 minutes it would take to drive to the library and back in the results, Google would be fastest every time, and only marginally less accurate.
Good for Google!
D
Ricochet was around $70 amonth, but at 20-60 bucks a week it more than paid for itself. Best thing, there were no rules that said you couldn't access the internet. People were amazed at my trivia knowledge.
They should've included the time it would take for a layperson to find out who to call and what the phone number is. Being a member of the press and having those numbers (or a sense of who to call) on hand is not representative of most people.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
What a horrible format to display the results. Never heard of the reader's need.
Esta es una firma en Espanol.
Last time I needed to go to one of my local libraries I had to google the address, then google a map of how to get there.
Question 3: Who is the vice chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on back care?
A google search for:
"vice chairman" all-party parliamentary group "back care"
resulted in *exactly one* hit, a pdf document listing all parliamentary groups. A click on View As HTML, a find on "back care" and Voila, the answer took about 30 seconds to get.
An experienced googler can find things faster than they did. This particular case was just a matter of knowing the difference between words and phrases and putting quotes in the right place. But there are many other tricks (such as negation and using 'site:') that their google searches could have benefited from.
bp
I'll stick to Google when looking for the solution to some Oracle error code or when hunting for some code examples. Also, computer technology books are notoriously vunerable to going out of date quickly.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
This is just some luddite demonstration to prove that the good old library is still the best, you damn kids!
Really, was there any other point to this? Everyone has already made it clear that not figuring in travel time to the library is an obvious massive flaw to this test.
Yes there are some things that will be easier at the library and they are going to be (surprise) questions related to books!
I love libraries, worked in one as well but have not been inside one in a year or so. That doesn't diminish how important they were to me as a teenager but their time has passed except maybe as a study hall. That is not an insult, just a simple fact.
"3 I actually have to have a conversation with someone on the phone. Google can be a more private experience, which depending on what I'm searching for, can allow me to better focus on finding the information I need."
"Hi, I'm looking for pictures of hot young naked sluts?...yes, I'll hold"
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
So many times I've thought
"I wonder how I can find the answer to this question",
using a thesaurus,
using boolean searches
And then I thought, maybe there's a way I can get better at googleing. After all, some people are rubbish, if the phrase isn't there there don't subsitute words, they don't know about speech marks and so forth.
So where can I find google training because I'm sure it's a skill, just that few recognise it. And being told to just google for the answer on freenode as we all know, isn't much help unless they give you some words to search for.
Example:
what's the word for that thing, you know, the big white round thing, the thing that goes on the what-sit; the point is you need the words to start with.
A blog I run for the wealth
"2 I have to leave my house (which could entail getting dressed, which adds more time) and drive 4 minutes to the library. Once I get my online library account through the county, however, this will no longer be a factor :)."
This won't help much unless they put the contents of the books online also and I'm sure the DMCA won't obstruct that. No sir-ree-bob.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Interesting to see all these complaints that the travel time was not included in the library time. This automatically assumes that every time we want an answer to a question we are sitting at a computer (stupid question on Slashdot).
What if I'm out at lunch in town, 30 minutes from my office, an hour from home and two minutes from the library? What about adding in the time to travel to a computer to access Google?
Of course, of the three options only a phone can be with you at all times so it automatically is the quickest in most situations, whether hiking in the mountains, sitting on a train, in a pub etc.
The library timings are all ridiculuously low. One "ilbrary" query was listed as 20 seconds. Google and the Phone (the other two compared information search services) are ubiquitous and can be used from anywhere. A library involves a trip to the library, which is at least 10 minutes travel for most people, if not more. And even if the stopwatch started when you walked in the front door of the library, there's now way in hell they answered that first query in 20 seconds time total.
Sounds like someone wanted to make a point that Google was inferior to your local library, and made up the data to prove it.
11*43+456^2
I agree entirely. For example, for the question about what was unusual about the 1908 Olympic 400m race in London I typed in '"400m" olympic london 1908' and clicked on the 2nd link down entitled "1908 LONDON OLYMPIC GAMES" and bingo, I knew the answer (I didn't bother looking at the first link as it was called "Scottish Olympic Hall of Fame" so I figured it wouldn't be worth looking at for the answer).
It's just a case of being able to use a search engine. It took them 1:45 seconds, where as it took me 15 seconds. If I were them, I'd keep quiet about that.
It's a pity they chose such an unscientific and biased comparison. But then, I'm sure it's selling copies of the Guardian, which is ulitmately what it's all about anyway.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I use Google for everything.
http://www.google.com/search?q=1%2B1
I'm not gonna do any free advertising for anyone (I don't know of any free research databases, however most colleges pay for access for their students), but the easy way to get around this is with an online research database. Dead tree publications, including newspapers, magazines, books, research journals, just about anything you could ever want in a searchable database. Plus, it'll give you just the articles or pages in a book that match your search query! Generally with the bibliography format done for you.
Yeah, or you could just call the reference desk. A good reference librarian will probably find your answers faster than you would anyway. They tend to have degrees in finding information.
In terms of find the desired target info, the Web is MUCH more effective than using the Library,
We published research showing this which is included in this journal article:
Roy, M., Taylor, R., & Chi, M. T. C. (2003). Searching for information on-line and off-line: Gender differences among middle school students. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 29 (2). 229-252.
- the value of the information presented is inversely proportional to the effort made presenting it
- the accuracy of the data is inversely proportional to the effort required to collect it
I've noticed that the most useful pages to me are the ones that contain plain text, like mailing list archives, for example. Maybe that's just an artifact of the type of information I'm typically trying to collect (technical questions, etc).The second point is just a general observation. When I was in school, the web was a wet-behind-the-ears DARPA project that nobody had heard of. To write a paper, I had to go to the library and look stuff up in books and periodicals. It took friggin' forever, but the results were pretty accurate. Now, I can type something in google and get a bazillion hits pretty much instantly, but I have to carefully search through the results to weed out lunatic fringe webpages (unless that's what I'm looking for), out-of-date webpages with no date on them, etc. I wonder how that affects kids today doing research papers? Imagine never having to go to the library, but, instead, having to hone your skills of scepticism.
If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, hump its leg.
Who cares if you don't know where to look for a piece of information? The reference librarian does. In larger libraries, there are usually librarians who specialize in particular fields of research. My university's library, for instance, has at least one research librarian assigned to each college or school within the university-- all degreed, and many dual-degreed in library science and their respective specialty fields. And they don't care in the least who is asking them for help-- it's not like the CS librarian will only talk to CS students.
Google is convenient, and fast for most searches, but there's a lot of information that just isn't available to it. Libraries buy access to that information, both in print and in databases, and they hire people to help you find the stuff you need.
The most important library skill, and the one that is most often overlooked, is recognizing the reference desk and asking for help.
Google is great at narrowing a search and, in my experience, beats a library hands down. There's an advantage to the library that I have not yet been able to adequately mirror using Google though: walking the stacks.
In doing research, a fair amount of useful tidbits have been found by scanning adjacent information on the physical shelves. I've found gems in books and journals rarely accessed but which resided near the shelf location of my intended target.
Yes, hyperlinking gets you to related internet-based material too, but it tends to be the most popular material. A good research library that has ample shelf space in the stacks has all of the related material grouped together regardless of popularity. That's an advantage for getting breadth on an academic topic.
Under those circumstances, the whole question "which is faster" misses uncovering this important difference.
From the article:
...Google has found all my keywords on it - just not together
Unfortunately, "back" is rather a common word, and is turning up in all sorts of irrelevant documents...
I'm amazed at how many people don't know how to search for phrases.
It was Grace Slick, right? Saying "Up against the wall, motherfuckers" during We Should Be Together on Dick Cavett?
I already knew it was her - I found it by Googling for Grace Slick motherfuckers, and looking in the first returned article.
Both the tests and the replies miss the most obvious problem: Google, libraries and friends answer different information needs.
Google is a fantastic way to find web sites. That's both the massive scope and the cramped limitation of it. It's up to you to sift through the web site result for the specific bit of information you want and then determine its accuracy. Google itself makes no claims on providing informationally accurate results, it claims to provide contextually accurate results.
If you want a significantly higher chance of information accuracy, a library is your ideal choice. For comprehensive information on the topic, a library is a better choice. You have experts on hand to steer you towards the most useful/reliable sources, and information pre-catalogued and cross-referenced for you.
If you want a an answer to a question that's particularly obscure, highly specialized, or couched in necessarily vague (or, worse, common) terms, a human expert is your best bet. If you want to find the last time the Milwaukee Brewers were over .500 in June, you talk to your baseball-enthusiast friend (substitute in appropriate football clubs and stats if you happen to be in the 90% of the world that prefers football). If you want to know the name of that one blonde girl your ex-roommate dated sophomore year, you call your ex-roommate.
Somewhat tangentially, the other glaring problem with most of the responses I've seen is they ignore the skill required to use any of these sources. Plenty of people have complained how they wouldn't know what books to reference or what people to call...often the same people who mock the author for not knowing what search terms to use. It's all learned skills. Google-fu is learned, not natural. Just like library research (anyone who's played Call Of Cthulhu should know that), and knowing who to call. Knowing how to differentiate a web site that's probably authoritative from one that's at best shaky is a skill that's really no easier or harder than being able to recognize a publication as reliable or a rag.
Anyhow: my point is that the article is neither right nor wrong. Google vs. libraries vs. phone-a-friend is a pretty meaningless question. They're different resources for different jobs.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
If the article had asked any trained researcher how they would find an answer, the response would have been something like this:
1. Try a free topic-specific database if you know one (or a book if it's sitting next to you).
2. Try a free general purpose search engine (e.g. Google).
3. Try a pay version of 1 or 2 (e.g. Lexis-Nexis).
4. Call an expert or person with access to references.
5. Go find a free reference (e.g. at a library).
6. Go buy a reference (e.g. at a bookstore).
7. Commission a report / hire an expert.
8. Perform independent research yourself.
Doing research is just one more instance of finding the traditional balance between fast, accurate, and cheap -- choose two. Of course you start with Google or something like it. (Free search engines have the bonus of being usable almost untrained.) A more interesting question than the one the article asked is:
How often can Google get you a sufficient answer?
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
But is the internet really the quickest way to access facts - and get them right?
It's not a fair test. The "get them right" requirement skews results against the internet.
When all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grindstone.
Since there is a committee that predefines the keyword, and a modern search engine (on medline for instance Ovid), will map your free text to the MESH heading to which all articles have been mapped by a review committee. This is simply shifting the time to lookup to someone else. These articles are essentially "pre-looked-up". However, it makes the search much better, as someone who actually knows how to search, has pre-classified the articles with all the relevant search terms. Free text searches like google, on these massive databases typically return thousands of articles with marginal relevance.
And like most users of these specialized DB's, there are professional librarians available at most sites (or available via phone/email) to assist in searches, since these are mostly for business purposes (where time is money).
My favorites are the library ones.
1min 25secs at the library. I wish I could run that fast from home to the library and know EXACTLY where the periodicals are. I think what they did was have the person look through the appropriate newspaper/book/magazine/article and THEN start the stopwatch.
Why was this even posted on slashdot when it is so obviously mis-managed?
...you can't call your friend or the library any time you need to find out the answer to one of those questions. After a while, they get fed up and tell you to google it :-P
1 minute 37 seconds to find the answer, plus 23 minute drive, 17 minute parking, 11 minutes walking over to the library, 7 minutes to find the shelf, 11 minutes to walk back, 6 minutes to leave the parking garage, and 43 minutes to drive back in rush hour traffic. Total amount of time: basically an afternoon gone.
There's a reason regular people don't like to go libraries. Consider yourself lucky if you happen to live close enough to one.
They also forgot about the time it takes to *get* to the library.
The article is written from the perspective of someone who knows how to use the library. Finding a book in a "card catalog" (computerized of course) generally takes 20-30 seconds at most, and is not even neccesary if you're heading to the reference section, or other known source. Finding a book on the shelf is no more difficult than walking to it for anyone somewhat familiar with the sorting system, especially if you've been in that library before. Finding the page, well, most books have tables of contents. And if you find the book unsuitable, books are grouped by subject, so it's a simple matter of picking up the book next to it.
It's not the author's fault you never go to the library. Many people, especially those for whom information is a profession, spend a lot of time there.
Anyway, in this case, you can have your cake and eat it too: Google is conveniently available in most libraries.
Even better:
all-party "back care"
Feel lucky and you can't miss it. The problem was that the tester didn't use google at all for this one. He thought the parliament web site's built-in search would be better. They say they're testing google, but they're really just testing the surfing habits of one guy (who uses google when he feels like it).
It would be interesting to see a more scientific study along these lines: more information targets, more users, and some kind of standardized way to measure time (including travel time, etc). Except we all know how it would turn out. . .
Works great during business hours doesn't it?
Accuracy I think it more of an issue.
....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
And the library user was obviously very, very knowledgeable of the library. Or (more likely) the results were fixed. 20 seconds for question 1? What, did he start with Who's Who in his lap? Okay, maybe if it is an online version, and the guy is already logged in... but for an ordinary user, you could spend many times the amount of time it'd take to google something just trying to find out where to look in the library.
i published the The Google Report a week ago, and their crapola storygets on /.? i even had my girlfriend submit the link...
seriously, my report is much better than theirs.
carl
Maybe it is a generational thing.
I still don't think of search engines as a serious research tool.
I know some younger people do.
When I use google it is to find " with the genre".......finding answers for web related things and IT stuff.
If I went back to school and got a serious research assignment I would go to a library.
Google's main strength is its simplicity and convenience.
Many people don't know how to use libraries.
You can also use google from your living room.
Steve
What expeirenced googler has ever taken a full minute to find anything. These guys either suck at searching or they have an agenda.
i work at a hospital. if ever we have a dispute over what a certain term means or the symptoms of a given ailment, where do i turn? we have a ton of books sitting on the shelf... i turn to google. i usually find exactly what i'm looking for. my fellow coworkers (who are often less than internet savvy) marvel at how fast i come up with results. they try to stump me. me, they can stump... google, however, they cannot.
google works extremely well (for me) when researching how to fix a problem with my computer or web server. versions change so fast, and a quick search on google (or usually google groups) yields a solution (or a path to one) very quickly.
even my mom (definately not computer savvy) has added the word "google-ing" to her vocab.
It would see that some preknowledge of the answers was going on.
For example, on the tuesday wessex couple question, one of the keywords used for their google search was "engagement"...the searcher already had preknowledge of the answer.
That kind of skews the results.
Maybe this happened on the others too. They didn't list their search pattern.
For me google is an undeniable champion in as a knowledge base. It is interesting to see it compare against traditional methods. Exactly who wins is not important. Few years ago only few people would have these extraordinary connections and great library category skill. Today any average dude with some google skill can do as good or better. This race just shown how far people have gone today.
It is also a good reminder that google is not everything. There is still a lot of information not published online and having a knowledgeable friend still counts.
there are 2 easy ways to get around this. 1. In my state we have something called galileo and lexis nexis thats is provided to colleges and their student. Articles off this are counted as articles from newspapers. Or you can search for your topic on the internet find an article that quotes from a book and take their quotes and supporting arguments and work them into your paper. And voila you have a book source.
Google is like any other tool; one has to know how to use it in order to get the desired results. The thing I find interesting about this article, however, is that the tester obviously didn't know how to use Google effectively and was still able to find the answers pretty quickly on a fairly regular basis.
I know that if I was in a library, I would be hard pressed to find what "Sophie and Edward Wessex did on Tuesday." This tells me that Google is useful and accessible to just about everyone, whereas libraries are much less user-friendly.
That, in my mind is more than enough qualification for the title "fastest and most accurate way to find information."
Here's an example of the tester's inexperience with Google:
What was unusual about the British gold medal victory in the 400m in the 1908 Olympics in London?
It took the tester 1min 45sec. I thought that it seemed a little unreasonable for the search to take that long, and I was quite right. I searched for
British gold 400m 1908 Olympics and found the answer in about 11 seconds (on dial up). Who would have thought that the answer would be in the second paragraph of the first result? Also, I could have cut down my search time by viewing the cached page.
What's the point of this article without summarizing the results?
(in seconds) Total seek time / Avg seek time:
Google: 775 / 129
Phone: 7565 / 1260
Library: 864 / 144
I wish people would stop saying this, as it applies to all of the methods. If they count the time to get to a libarary (from where exactly?), they also would need to count the time to get to a computer with internet access. This makes the whole thing kind of silly. From most places, I am closer to a public library than to public internet access. The library may have internet access, but at least at the libraries near me, you have to wait a long time for one of the computers.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
What about drive time to the library? They don't seem to take that into account, it takes me more than a few seconds to drive to my local library.
Google is open 24 hrs a day (or almost). The library's open only a portion of each day. If your question comes up at 10pm, your access time to the library might run into 10+ hrs.
I think this is an extremely interesting topic and test. I'd be interested in a bigger version of the same thing. A long list of questions and an entire day to get the answers, judged on both time an accuracy.
It's also great that they seemed to have put pretty good people to the test, which proves that whether you're on the Internet, in the Library, or on the phone, the best information miners will always be the most highly skilled people working with their most effective tools.
The library and phone guys seemed to really be great, and the Google guy wasn't bad. He pointed out Google quoted phrase searching, which is something the general searching public should be more aware of. But I was still not terribly impressed with him. I quizzed myself on the same questions. I'm not British, so I had a bit of a cultural disadvantage (not much of one, though). I blew their Google guy out of the water.
Again, it's not the tools... it's the person using them. Still an extremely interesting experiment.
RP
Likely he was allowed to stack a number of books in front of him before getting the questions, just like you would normally research a wide range of subjects in a library.
What, did Who's Who launch it self off the shelf into his hot little hand the second he walked in the door?
Or he has a miniature library he keeps in his pocket and a really good magnifying glass?
It would have taken 20 seconds just to walk in the door. Then he's attributing his knowledge of "which book to look in" to the library, when that was his - some of us have no clue that Whos Who would tell you what books someone has written.
He's vastly understating the time it takes to use the library, probably quoting the time it took once he had the book in his hand. If you factor in having to discover which book(s) to look in and actually walking over to the shelf to find it, the library could and would take a lot longer.
How can you compare Google to a library? How about comparing the Internet to a library? For instance, why would I use Google to "List the titles of all the books written by Piers Morgan, editor of the Daily Mirror", when I can do it much more easily and quickly by going to amazon.co.uk?
As they have demonstrated, finding the information is about knowing where to look in the library, not just to look in the library. Similarly, if you know what site to go to on the Internet, then why would you go to Google?
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
This particular question of whether computers are faster, and its moral that they are for some things but not for others, was the subject of a 1957 movie with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Desk Set. In it, Hepburn is a librarian afraid that Tracy is planning to replace her with a large mainframe computer with lots of flashing lights. And in the end we find that yes, the computer is faster for some things, but no, it's not faster than a good librarian for all things, and there's a place for both.
(And yes, I couldn't remember the name of the movie, but it took all of about 5 seconds to find the answer in Google; searching on "hepburn tracy library computer" got me several links, and the second one was so obviously on point that the answer was in the snippet that Google itself quoted.)
Sure, if you know what it is you're looking for. But that was not the case here.
From other comments, it sounds like his time didn't start until he got to the book/source in question.
Didn't expect this to work.
dont know about you but my cell phone has internet access and google works just fine on that as well.
Also of note is that libraries close over night, the internet doesnt. And last I checked the US had something like 70% internet penetration.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
One thing that Google can't compete for with the library: Focus. I'll go Google for some tidbit for an assignment, and 2 hours later I realise "Oh Crap! I need that tidbit!" because I always find other interesting things along the way and read them. Then another hour goes by, and I come to my senses again..."Oh Crap! I REALLY need to get that tidbit" And so on. Information overload can get intoxicating.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I must agree, searching experience and the skill one has with the tool comes into play here. I once watched someone look on Google for what Shakespeare play a specific quote was from (don't ask why, it's really not important); after 10 minutes they gave up. When I got home I looked for the same thing and found the answer in about 20 seconds.
Of course he can call people and get info from them. Now let's see what happens when everyone starts calling embassies with stupid trivia questions... An average person doesn't have easy access to knowledgeable people. So Google is their friend (for the time being) and using telephone is out of the question. Library is better, but not when you need to know something right now (unless you happen to have a huge library in your house/office, like they probably do in Guardian).
I do have some reference books at home, but I mostly use Internet. And while today it may still be more efficient to use a mixture of books and net search, I don't want to cling to old books - in a few years (5-10 years at most) most books will hopefully be digitised and put online in one form or another.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Very incorrect. A phrase is a group of words. If you remove the spaces, it becomes one word. "now here" is much different from "nowhere"
"I would argue that it is proper for Google to do this; if you don't want tobeornottobe you add a -tobeornottobe"
Altavista does phrase searching with no errors at all. To do what you are describing in Google, to ensure complete accuracy, I would have to do a - on all possibilities of combined words. Rather kludgey:
"to be or not to be" -tobeornottobe -tobe -tobeor -tobeornot -tobeornotto -beor -bornot
(I know I missed some; this just shows the trouble you have to go in Google to ensure relevant results, while other search engines have no problem with this.)
The bug shows up in "at rain". The first two of ten results returned do not contain the phrase "at rain": a 1 in 5 error rate.
"Ab rain" glitches out in a different way. Still 2 of 10 results incorrect. The "Rain Bird" result finds "ab" and "rain" no-where near each other in the document. "abrain" is returned in another.
Next, "ag rain". It is actually the name of an irrigation machine, a commercial product. Imagine someone at this company looking up the product in Google. They get 2 error results in the top 10. One of them is the same Rainbird page which is an error result for "Ab rain". Another is a German page that does not contain anything like "ag rain".
There is no consistency to the bug. A search on "Retreat" vs "re treat" turns up 100% correct results for each search.
There's a way out of this, though. Jon Kleinberg of Cornell describes an interesting application of graph theory to the Internet to yield better searches where the search term may not even be present.
I've written an article and a program to demonstrate the technique at Mathematics of the Internet.
automobile manufacturers
a good search engine is supposed to come up with pages containing these words. If it comes up with a Subaru site just because Subaru is a "car maker", then the search engine is failing and giving sloppy results.
"the Internet to yield better searches where the search term may not even be present. "
In other words, bogus/erroneous results. A good search engine should stick to pages where the search term is present. Anything else is "oops!"