Librarians: Better than Google

Contrary to what avid Googlers may think, we need librarians more than ever. To help us find information and to help us evaluate it. We need to help our children see this too. "While the accuracy of online information is notoriously uneven, the ubiquity of the Web means that a trip to the stacks is no longer the way most academic research begins," the New York Times reports. Then there's all the solid information not available to a Google search (or that of any other search engine) - some 500 billion pages, according to estimates cited by the Times. "The biggest problem is that search engines like Google skim only the thinnest layers of information that has been digitized. Most have no access to the so- called deep Web, where information is contained in isolated databases like online library catalogs."

In other library news, New Hampshire libraries are refusing to use filtering software and are willing to forgo federal connectivity subsidies from the e-Rate in order to provide Net access without filters, the Associated Press reports. Instead, libraries explain to patrons that the Net is not filtered and require children under 18 to have a parent or guardian's permission to use the Internet. Under the Children's Internet Protection Act, upheld by the Supreme Court a year ago, libraries that receive federal e-rate funds have until the end of this month to install Internet filters on their computers.