Thing 4: Google

I was interested to find that the topic of Thing 4 was the G-word. We all know that Google enjoys something of a dubious reputation at best amongst librarians. Certainly, I agree as a communications tool Google is as good and in some respects better than the competition. I've used G Mail for a number of years and I think its great. Also, Google Maps has saved me from some tricky navigational situations in the past where I've been to proud to pull over and ask a passing stranger for directions!

Although, I had no experience of using Hangouts or Hangouts-On-Air until today. I'm particularly impressed with Hangouts-On-Air and its record feature. I can already think of many ways in which my library could utilise this tool to help guide our users on how to access our e-resources. I've certainly benefited myself from online tutorial sessions in the past. A fairly recent example was just before a friends wedding when I was frantically searching Youtube for a tutorial video on how to tie a windsor knot! I think that is becoming increasingly common in our society. When we are looking for practical information on how to do something we increasingly look to online videos. As librarians then we need to respond to this. Accessing library e-resources and tips for literature searches can be effectively taught using free screen casting tools such as this.    

While I'm on the subject of Google. I recently attended a medical and nursing literature searching course and I was surprised when the course leader began by talking about the best ways to search Google Scholar. At first I thought this was treason but on reflection I think it is important that we acknowledge that if our users are going to use Google as a search tool then we should give them guidance and support whilst advising caution where appropriate as oppose to dictating which search tools they should and should not use.