The impact on libraries of the Google generation

1. Introduction
Internet search engines such as Google and Bing allow users to find information quickly and easily. There is no need for any user instruction. In contrast, librarians insist on educating users thoroughly in the best and most effective way to use library systems . It is suggested that by focusing on user education in this way, librarians may be alienating users from the Google generation, who search for information in a different way. User’s aspirations for the quality of results they achieve when searching for information is also at odds with librarians ideas. Librarians search through large amounts of information to achieve quality results Google users, however, do not wish to put this much effort into searching. They have little patience for search systems that fail to provide instantaneous results . Similarly it has been suggested that only librarians want to search for information whilst users want to find information. The key difference being that librarians find large amounts of information then search through this information to collect the most valuable sources. However users want to find information quickly and will usually settle for the first 'good enough' results they find. It is argued that teachers and librarians must adapt their services to suit any changes in user preferences. It is important that this discrepancy between user's and librarian's ideas about searching for information is explored as this could affect library use negatively.
2. Google generation
The assumption is that this generation is qualitatively different from what went before. Back in 2001 when he coined the term “digital natives”, Marc Prensky wrote that ‘today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors’ . In another article he backs up this claim by referring to research in the fields of neurobiology and social psychology. Back then, most people were baffled by the possibilities and technologies of the information age. While struggling to keep pace, they were impressed and humbled by the way young people thrived online and seemed to stay on top of it all, effortlessly .
A fresh study shows that this is far from the case. The research subject is the “Google generation”, defined as those born after 1993, a cohort of young people with little or no recollection of life before the web . The study is commissioned by the British Library and JISC conducted by the CIBER centre at the University College of London. It reveals how children now in school or pre-school are likely to access and interact with digital resources in five to ten years time.
3. The ease of internet search engines vs librarians
Internet search engines such as Google and Bing allow users to find information quickly and easily. There is no need for any user instruction. In contrast, librarians insist on educating users thoroughly in the best and most effective way to use library systems. It is suggested that by focusing on user education in this way, that librarians may be alienating users from the Google generation who search for information in a different way.
Users’ aspirations for the quality of results they achieve when searching for information is at odds with librarians ideas. Librarians search through large amounts of information to achieve quality results. Whereas Google users do not wish to put in this amount of effort. They have little patience for search systems that fail to provide instantaneous results.
Similar to the last point it has been suggested that only librarians want to search for information whilst users want to find information. The key difference being that librarians find large amounts of information then search through this information to collect the most valuable sources. Whilst users simply wish to find information quickly and will often access the first results returned.
Some other characteristics have been identified in the Google generation. The “skimming” and “bouncing” behaviour of users, particularly younger users - i.e. they read shallowly, and don’t stay on one site/information source for long. Professor Nicholas pointed out that librarians and academics tend to assume that this is a bad thing.
4. The problem with library search systems
Current approaches to representing that complexity are far from perfect. And new solutions that provide a single index that searches many of the library’s resources can help filter some of the complexity. However, even these solutions mask the complexity more than they cure it . To deal with the complexity of its results page Google gives you search options that narrow the scope of your search (Scholar, Blogs, Images, etc.). However, those categories still fail to represent the complexity or give us enough options. So we are left to hope what we are looking for is in the first few pages of results - to Google’s credit, it often is.
Library web pages lack one of the strengths of cockpit design - standardization. Pilots can move from plane to plane and expect similar layouts. In libraries, for now, our users have to learn a new interface every time they come to a new library home page . And the incentive in libraries is to come up with something new rather than make user experience uniform from interface to interface. It creates a challenge for our users and it creates challenges for the librarians who maintain web pages.
5. Concerns for young people
Concerns have been raised over an intellectual and academic ‘dumbing-down’ associated with young people’s digitally redefined relationships with information and knowledge. Thus some commentators contend that the capacity of young people to learn is now compromised by a general inability to gather information from the internet in a discerning manner. As Andrew Keen puts it, the current generation of school children “is taking search-engine results as gospel”, thus fostering a “younger generation of intellectual kleptomaniacs, who think their ability to cut and paste a well-phrased thought or opinion makes it their own” (p.25). Similar concerns are expressed over the quality of internet-supported learning amongst university students with numerous predictions of the intellectual and scholarly de- powering of a ‘Google generation’ of undergraduates incapable of independent critical thought (e.g. ). Especially prominent here has been the writing of Tara Brabazon , who describes how online provision of learning resources sets inexperienced students adrift from the support of their teachers and gives them leeway to “behave rashly, make poor judgements and cut corners”. Brabazon’s depiction of the current ‘net generation’ of undergraduate students laments a situation where “clicking replaces thinking” and scholarship consists of little more than “Googling their way” through degree courses () and engaging in forms of “accelerated smash and grab scholarship” (). Aside from the detrimental effect on ‘traditional’ skills and literacies, concerns are beginning to be raised that digital technologies may be contributing to an increased disengagement, disenchantment and alienation of young people from formal institutions and activities.
6. The Future?
The huge question raised above is whether, and to what extent, the behaviour, attitudes and preferences of today’s Google generation youngsters will persist as they grow up and some of them become academics and scholars. In the absence of properly constructed longitudinal studies that tracked the information behaviour of a single cohort of young people through to maturity, it is impossible to answer this question directly . Circumstantial evidence that today’s undergraduates, just a little older than the Google generation, are `different’ from older adults is presented on the next page. The graph shows the relative value that members of the academic community place on a range of methods for finding articles. The age differences are startling and they suggest that the shift away from the physical to the virtual library will accelerate very rapidly and that tools like Google Scholar will be increasingly a real and present threat to the library as an institution . In the meantime and to try and counteract these changes libraries could make some changes to the way they relate to young people. As Professor Nicholas argues it’s such a waste of energy to try to drag users away from their preferred ways of working. It’s important to try to work with users, and tailor the help offered to the way they instinctively work. He does not suggest abandoning information literacy training, but argues it’s difficult to make such training feel relevant to users. Another point that was made was that, in order for information literacy and search skills to “stick”, pragmatic outcomes need to be stressed. That can literally be as simple as rephrasing “I can teach you information literacy skills” as “I can show you how to get better grades” (if you’re working with students) .

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