I taught 2 classes today. I have a cold, so I was not in a good mood when I was running some searches in one of the databases I was going to show my classes (the name of the database vendor rhymes with Christian Bale), only to discover that they had just switched on a ‘feature’ that appears on the top of the search results list — a link to the google image search.

While I’m all in favor of using web image searches if it is appropriate to one’s research, I see no value in a link that will try to rerun a search for articles(formulated with boolean operators, truncation symbols, etc) in google without reparsing the search query so it would be possible to get some results instead of a google error message.

And why was this even set up? Are they getting kickbacks from google? What does my library get for paying for a database that incorporates search engine product placement? And why do database companies do things like this without informing their clients?

Most people know how to use google already. It is enough of a struggle to try to educate patrons that they have access to a ton of valuable online information through the library, and no, it isn’t all on the open web. Seeing the google logo slapped on an article database just adds more confusion to an area that is already blurry to many people.

Grrrrrr….