Is Google Your Reader's Advisor?

Earlier this month, Google announced the arrival of the “Knowledge Graph.” Many call it the “semantic web” because the search will understand relationships between things. The basic idea is that the Google search engine will search more like a human because it will understand context. There are already scores of great articles in print and online (good one on YALSA) detailing how the KG will change search.

But I'm interested in how it will change Reader's Advisory. For now, the KG is limited and only brings up information and related links about specific types of (what I'll call) "objects" (Google calls them people, places, and things). Books are one type of thing that "Google knows about."

Because KG's coverage is still fairly limited, it cannot come close to competing with the scope and coverage of tools like NoveList or even commercial recommenders like Amazon or BN.com. Yet the convenience of the service will mean searchers might never leave Google to complete their information transactions. Readers may go no further than Google for a book recommendation. What will this mean for libraries and bookstores? Will librarians adapt this tool quickly into workflows and public service offerings? Or will we let it become further proof to funders that we are no longer the "R" word?

Let's explore what KG provides right now. I conducted a very unscientific experiment about a week ago (May 26), searching around 15 books and authors in less than an hour. Titles were random bestsellers or award winners that are hot now or have been in recent memory. Below are titles that produced KG hits:

Twilight
The Help
Fast Food Nation
Life of Pi
The Kite Runner
Three Cups of Tea
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Hunger Games
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

Titles that didn't produce KG hits:

Fifty Shades of Grey
Seabiscuit [but the movie and the horse were hits]
Lost Memory of Skin
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention [but the man was a hit]

Included in the KG entry: book cover image, brief information about the book, five recommended titles ("People also search for"). The image links you to the Google Books entry which can have incredible detail, depending on the title. And Google Books provides links to copies for purchase and copies in libraries. Because the library data is linked to the WorldCat.org database, you are already out of the game if . . .

1. your library is not included in WorldCat;
2. you do not keep your holdings up-to-date in WorldCat;
3. you do not have an effective discovery tool so patrons can find your digital copies as well as your print and audiobook copies.

If you click on one of the recommended titles, that book becomes the "object" of the Knowledge Graph. But not just books are objects. I wondered what would happen if I searched for an author instead of a title. For both Maya Angelou and David Sedaris, I got a photo and brief biographical information. Maya's photo linked to her official website. David's linked to nndb.com, which I didn't find all that illuminating. I was surprised it didn't link to Wikipedia -- much in the KG does. Both KG entries had links to their books and a second row with author read-alikes ("People also search for"). For David, it was Vowel, Burroughs, etc. For Maya, it was Hughes, Frost, etc.

The third person I searched is a New York Times bestselling romance author, Linda Winstead Jones. I was pleasantly surprised to see a brief bio of her pop up. There were no pictures, links to her books, or links to author read-alikes. Apparently, Google doesn't "know about" her yet. But, there was an ad for one of her books under her entry. That was phenomenal ad placement by some smart person in marketing somewhere.

But Google is not stopping at Readers Advisory. Searchers get info for singers and their albums with recommendations. Look at Lady Gaga's entry as a good example. For movies, you get less info, but you get recommendations for films and TV shows. Look at "Slumdog Millionaire."

So, how will this affect Reader's Advisory? I think KG could be an incredible marketing tool for libraries to direct traffic to our libraries and digital branches. Google Ads would be a surefire way to do that if we can or will find the money. Google also provides some free ads for nonprofits. I suspect that program will now become infinitely more popular. But libraries can help themselves quickly just by updating their WorldCat data.

For now, I think KG is a great tool to add to the RA librarian's toolbelt, especially for those incorporating iPads and tablets into roving reference and public service workflows. Often it is too time-consuming to hop into NoveList or Amazon for a quick RA session. It only takes a few names to kickstart a sluggish RA brain, and a five second search of Google will instantly produce five suggestions. That's enough to get me and the customer running through the stacks. Also, the speed of a Google search would enable RA Chat Services. Are there brave souls already doing that?