Jacksonville Ask a Librarian Story & News Clip

First Coast Librarians Give Human Answers to Online Searches
- July 18, 2008


JACKSONVILLE, FL -- When you search the internet, do you ever wish you could have a human being jump in and answer the question? You can -- for free -- and the answers may come from right here on the First Coast.

Let me tell you a story.

It's about learning things in the days before Google.

Instead of typing a question -- get this -- you would speak it out loud.
And while Google comes back with 112,000 potential answers to a question like: "What was the weather like the day Disneyland opened?"

The old way to learn gives you just one answer.

It's the right one.

"110 degrees," Jacksonville librarian Karen Hardin said with a smile as she looked at her computer screen.

She read further into the article.

"Asphalt was still steaming because it had been laid the night before, literally trapping high-heeled shoes," she said.

You see, back before there was Google, there was Karen Hardin. She's a librarian. And the old way to learn involves asking a real person.

In a back office at Jacksonville's Main Library, she's on patrol.

"What we do right now is basically just wait for someone to come up," she said.
Moments later, her computer's speakers let out a "ding!"

"There we go," she said.

Someone just went to a library website somewhere in Florida, clicked the "Ask a Librarian" link, and asked her a question.

She launches into answer mode: surfing the web with the customer, asking follow-up questions, digging through databases you've never heard of, and delivering a reliable answer.

It's like Google -- but with a trained researcher leading the way.
Different libraries all over the state take shifts answering questions.
You may get someone in Tampa today, or Orlando tomorrow.

So take your question that's got Google stumped to Karen Hardin and her colleagues.

They'll help you learn just like folks did in the days before the first search bar showed up on any computer screen.

Want to try it yourself?

Click here to link to the Jacksonville Public Library's "Ask a Librarian" service.©2008 First Coast News. All rights reserved.