Google Ka Baap

Ever imagined a world without Google! Or, maybe even without Yahoo! or MSN. Well, there are people in this world who live without the net and in this library the internet hardly matters.Since 1968, a small band of researchers at the New York Public Library has been tackling questions reducing life’s infinite jumble to an answer, more or less.

Today, despite the Internet, the band of researchers of what is known as the telephone reference service are still at it. Every day, except Sundays and holidays, anyone, of any age, from anywhere can telephone and ask any question in langauges ranging from Yiddish to Armenian. The band has somewhat five minutes to answer any query meaning the caller gets an answer or somewhere to go for an answer — like a specialty library, trade group or Web site. Researchers cannot call back questioners.

Interestingly, the library staff does not answer crossword or contest questions or do children's homework.Still, the persistence of this service raises its own questions. Like why, in the age of search engines, would anyone bedevil a human being with such questions? And what human being would choose to be so bedeviled?

(via www.timesofindia.com)

Paul Duguid, an adjunct professor at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley, said there would always be a place for such human search engines. “There are dark areas on the Internet,” Duguid said, “vast databases that are not scanned by search engines like Google.”



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