Free Cornell Librarians Do Better In Searches Than Paid Google Searchers

from the go-big-red dept

Okay, I’m not really sure this proves anything, but I’m happy to see that the wonderful reference librarians at my alma mater, Cornell, have shown that they’re better at answering questions for free than the folks who answer questions at Google Answers for a fee. Admittedly, the results were pretty even (just a slight edge to Cornell), but the fact that the librarians are free and Google costs money should make an even bigger difference. Admittedly, this was also a very small study, and not particularly scientific. It was probably done more to promote Cornell’s free reference librarian service than to actually determine if there was a difference. Still, there’s just something about knowing your old school won something – and since we were never very good at (most) sports, it’s nice to see the old school on the hill beat up others using some brain power…


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