Tuesday, January 25, 2005

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has a site that contains reports of use to anyone making plans that involve their audience using technology (and that means us librarians!). http://www.pewinternet.org/index.asp . A report they released on January 23rd has been making the news - "Search Engine Users: Internet searchers are confident, satisfied and trusting - but they are also unaware and naive." http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/146/report_display.asp . I imagine that the report will only reinforce what you have seen first-hand when teaching your users to evaluate what they see in their search results, and in their choice of search tools.
Some of the news links covering this report:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050124/D87QEK3O0.html
http://news.com.com/Study+Net+users+confused+about+search/2100-1032_3-5547932.html
And a good discussion on Lorcan Dempsey's blog http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/000552.html, that leads back to the information literacy discussion - http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/000540.html .
We just have to find a better way to reach all these 'satisfied' people - or not.

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