New York Times Reports on Google's Impact on Libraries

The June 21, 2004 issue of the New York Times reports on the three year study by Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia University that concluded that electronic resources have become the main tool for information gathering, particularly among undergraduates. Not only has the web become popular with students, but with faculty as well. In the Columbia survey, 90 percent of the faculty members who responded said they used electronic resources in their research several times a week or more.In response, librarians at Carnegie Melon, the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) and other organizations are trying to bring material that search engines like Google have missed from the deep Web to the surface. In recent months, dozens of research libraries began working with Google and other search engines to help put their collections within reach of a broader public.