Speaking Volumes

 That’s what my grandmother used to say: “A day late and a dollar short.” I’m thinking this applies to a couple of things as I write this. First -- some of you may note that the date on this post is Thursday. It should be Wednesday, but.... I’m a day late and a dollar short.

It isn’t even that I altogether forgot about writing or, as is so often the case, I forgot yesterday was Wednesday. I sat down to write. My mind went blank. I got distracted. Here we are. Thursday.

As I realized this morning that I had not posted, Ialso  realized I had still had no idea what to write about. A day late and a dollar short.

But as I was standing in line at the coffee shop for breakfast this morning, I saw an interesting business card that attracted my attention. It was for a man who was selling “search ability.” What on earth is that you might ask? Pretty much I did, so I picked up the card to investigate.

This act was not purely one of curiosity. One of the long standing tasks and training of librarians is searching. We have whole semester classes devoted to learning and investigating the by ways and tricks of typing in those few precious words that allow the ghosts in the machine to work their magic and cull out the exact thing one is looking for from the trillions of bits of detritus stuck in ‘the web.’ Not only are we professionally trained and have daily experience, but we offer this service to the public for free! Therefore, when I see on television or other ads advertising “searching” or quick answers - for a fee, of course, my nose wrinkles, my eyebrow raises and I feel a compelling urge to go investigate.

This morning, as I read this flashy, glossy business card, I learned the gentleman offering his service had a unique spin on this now old game. He was not offering his services to answer questions, but to provide businesses with the right key words for indexing. In other words, for a fee, he would tell the chimney sweep that the appropriate keywords for his businesses website were likely to be: chimney, cleaning, fire prevention and so on.

Now on the one hand, if you are thinking, why should I pay someone for this? You are absolutely correct, but probably not for the reasons you are thinking.

Depending on your business, these keywords maybe painfully obvious. Certainly a dentist should not choose animal husbandry as a key word for searching. Likewise, most sites index and most searchers search by seeking out words that appear ANYWHERE on the website’s text.

On the other hand, as much as it may seem self evident, this is a valid element to  organizing information. For those who are skilled searchers, having the appropriate keywords and indexing can make a huge, time saving difference. Some search engines DO organize their results and prioritize based on these mostly hidden key search terms. For example, this is why you may find your own searches returning some ‘strange’ results from what you intended.

But pay for this? Why? Come talk to your local library. We’re trained. We’re experienced. And if you WANT to give our library a donation, I’m pretty sure we’ll be more grateful for your support of our business.

For the man who’s business card I took this morning. I wonder if he’s a librarian? But I still think, he’s a day late and a dollar short.

See you at the library!