Beyond the Search Engine: Perspectives on the Future Models

摘要

In traditional library practice, reference librarians are often asked questions that require not only searching for and identifying the proper information but also combining various facts in order to answer them completely. If one is asked, for instance, how many Democrats crossed the picket lines during strikes in Chicago from 1956 to 1980, an accurate answer may or may not be forthcoming, depending on available figures, but it will not be given directly by any one source. What is required, rather, is the ability to search a number of likely sources and compile the facts from them needed to deduce the answer. One might have to look in the records of the Democratic party, in newspaper accounts, in volumes devoted to union activities during the period, and perhaps in books on the labor movement generally. There may well be crucial information in less obvious places. Is it possible to devise a model that might offer this possibility for future researchers, one that could be implemented by a proper approach to the tagging of information as we look towards the next stages of information management and digital libraries?