Information Research Weblog

Google has been much in the news as a result of its venture into the digital library - on a huge scale. Today's Observer (one of the so-called 'broadsheet' Sunday papers in the UK, for those who don't know it, and part of the Guardian family) has an article in its business section on Google's latest venture, in which John Naughton refers to Howard Reingold's seminal work on the virtual community:

Many years ago, Howard Rheingold, who was one of the first people to understand the social potential of cyberspace, posed an interesting question: 'Where is the Library of Congress, when it's on your laptop?' To most people at the time, it seemed a meaningless question. What lay behind it, however, was an attempt to think through a profound consequence of a networked society - what Frances Cairncross later dubbed 'the death of distance'.

Naughton also notes:

Once upon a time, being learned involved holding a lot of knowledge and information in one's head. Are we moving towards a world where the important thing is not what you know, but how to find it?

an idea expressed many long years ago by Dr. Johnson (as reported by James Boswell—in 1791):

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."

which is also a very neat definition of the difference between 'knowledge' and 'information' :-)

Google was also the subject of one of Fortune's long articles last week, too. The focus was on the share price and the probability of investors getting their return (the verdict seemed to be, 'Be cautious'), but, among other things it has some interesting stuff on the competition.

Thanks also to Gerry Mckiernan and the ASIS-L mailing list for bringing another Google item to my attention; this time in the New York Times (you'll need to register to read the article, but registration is free).

The article contains a nice story about the irreplaceability of the physical book – for some purposes:

Mr. Jimerson said, 'A scanned image will only tell you some things, and the sheer volume of records makes scanning everything difficult'. But he added that he supported Google's plan in theory. 'I recall the story of a gentleman being in a library and watching a researcher sniff books', he said. 'It turned out that the aroma of vinegar was still embedded in those that had been treated with vinegar to prevent cholera during an epidemic'.

Thanks to Gerry also for another item in the New York Times – this time on Firefox. With Pennsylvania State University telling everyone on campus to switch from Internet Explorer, it would seem that Microsoft has a little problem on its hands – one that may result in a policy switch, unless arrogance holds sway in Redmond. If there is a policy switch it would require IE to be re-written from the ground up, so Firefox may go ahead by leaps and bounds. Try it—my guess is that, if you are an IE user, you'll need less than ten minutes with the new rival (well, not so new, if you've been using it for the past couple of years in its development phase) to convince you to switch.