TrendAlert: Google’s Impact On Libraries

In the library community, debate and discussion rage on about Google's dominance and transformational power. Google is no longer merely a search engine for the masses

- it's increasingly building on its irresistible simplicity and wild popularity to address deeper and broader information requirements across specific user populations. Google's rapid developments within the library space over the past six months have sent tremors through the information management (IM) community. This Briefing recaps Google's recent forays into the library space

- Google Print, Google Scholar, and Google Library

- that will have a disruptive effect on libraries. It looks at factors accelerating those changes, but also at some of the 'brakes' that could still limit Google's influence. For information managers, the Briefing provides a series of near-term strategies for dealing with the challenges that Google presents for their organizations, including ways to learn from Google, differentiate their offerings from it, build in user needs, and focus on the needs of the entire enterprise.