Cognotes 2019 Annual Conference Highlights - 11

COGNOTES

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HIGHLIGHTS

Finding Joy in Every Search
By Sara Zettervall, Hennepin County Library

Daniel M. Russell, PhD, shared his insights into internet searching and research
behavior on Saturday morning. He highlighted findings from his forthcoming book,
The Joy of Search: A Google Insider's Guide to
Going Beyond the Basics (MIT Press, September 2019), which includes stories from his
many years of research on search quality and
user happiness at Google.
Russell's goal for the session was simple:
to help librarians "learn to teach patrons
and users to be better searchers." He started
by defining the problem, which is that most
people learn how to search from their friends,
rather than from experts. So, if their friend
has a "dysfunctional search behavior," they
pick up on it.
When he visits classrooms or businesses,
he asks people to draw and write a brief explanation of how they think Google works.
Of his respondents, 33% used the word
"magic" in their answer. "This is an utter and
abject failure on our part as educators," he
said. But the good news is the second most
important place for people to learn search
behavior is in a classroom. His own massive
open online course (MOOC) on search
strategies, available at www.PowerSearchingWithGoogle.com, has reached over 4
million users. He laughed, and so did the
audience, that all those views meant "I've
been on someone's video screen for over
300 years," but all those hours of instruction
produced significant, measurable improvements. Something as simple as knowing to
use control-F to find a name buried in a page
correlates with 12% faster searching.
One theme Russell highlighted throughout his presentation was the world of information continues to grow and change
by leaps and bounds, but few users know
all the great resources available to them.
This is something most librarians know
well about their own digital resources, but
they may not realize Google is also far more
than just a search engine. In one of his test
cases, 250 software engineers failed to find a
photograph because it involved using Google
Earth and not just the usual Google search.
When an audience member called out to
ask whether he did the same test on his local librarians in Palo Alto, he said he did,
and none of them found it, either. People
are "functionally fixated" on the traditional
Google search, and in response, he said,
"We need to teach all information systems."
He encouraged fostering a culture of asking
questions and doing "just one more search"
to move past the first answer that presents
itself.
His presentation also covered that, as
he said, "we live in an age of information
triage," where we have to learn to filter out
false results. He included some examples of
"spoof sites," and touched on doctored videos. "You can and must know how to search
deeply, effectively, and precisely," he said,
providing a personal example that involved
the internet, in-person archival searches,
and interpersonal interaction. Through this
example, where he ultimately found his
answer by having a conversation with the
archivist, he highlighted that human connections remain a crucial information source to
teach and use alongside technology. Librar-

ians who are experts on all of these various
forms of information, including what they
hold within their own minds, are invaluable
resources for patrons.
Ultimately, participants walked away
with many new ideas to consider, and Russell made them laugh while navigating these
complicated topics. A few lucky participants
walked away with an advance reading copy
of his book, but everyone left with examples
they could use in their own libraries, such
as Google's new public data search (www.
google.com/publicdata), and the MOOC
mentioned before.
Daniel M. Russell talks about the joy
of searching, discussing adventures
in teaching people how to search.

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https://2019.alaannual.org/mobile-appi#alaac18 http://www.google.com/publicdata http://www.google.com/publicdata http://learn.cengage.com/got201046968?utm_source=american-libraries-association&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=gct20970463 http://www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com/ http://www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com/

Cognotes 2019 Annual Conference Highlights

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