Controversies of information discovery

Ian Hargraves

pp. 83-90

in: Technology and privacy II, Knowledge, Technology & Policy 20 (2), 2007.

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, libraries at all levels have seen large changes as new information technologies provide new means for the management and discovery of archived information. Paper-based card catalogs have been replaced by digital catalogs. The electronic publication of journals allows scholarly articles to be accessed offsite, and increasing amounts of the holdings of libraries are available through the Internet. This is not to say that the information holding and organizing function has been superseded or that libraries’ traditional role in supporting scholarship has been replaced. The technologies through which patrons now work complicates the tradition of the library as a public space of information holding and learning support. Google’s mission to “Organize the world’s information” challenges the work of those, who from long-standing practice, have undertaken that role.