Okay, I've got way too many things on my plate at the moment to go through this report, "Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) Project" but Sarah Kessler in a write-up for Mashable sums it up thusly:"Students in a two-year ethnographic study referred to Google more than any database when discussing their research habits. But ironically, say the study’s authors, they weren’t very good at using it."
Now, as a librarian and lifelong user of Google, I know you can limit it (kind of) by date or content type (eg book, article, image) plus a thousand other fancy things using a minus sign ('-') or quotes, etc. but should requiring knowing these things always -- or ideally -- be the ticket of entry? Doesn't sound very Google-ly to me.
Kessler in the Mashable write-up quotes one student:
"I know there are books but I don’t really know how to find them. Really the only thing I know how to do is go to Google and type in what I’m looking for."
My reaction was, I dunno. Sounds more to me like 'system fail' rather than 'people fail'. Ideally all that user should have to do is go to Google and type in what he or she is looking for. That at least is what I'd consider the 'Holy Grail'.
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