the 2009 Answer Challenge, 25-29 May
And the winner is...
you!!
With a Mosman Library card, you have access to smart librarians,
the internet and our electronic resources (many accessible from home).
With a Mosman Library card, you have access to smart librarians,
the internet and our electronic resources (many accessible from home).
Thank you to all those great librarians (and dare I say users) out there who voted overwhelmingly for Mosman Library’s electronic resources.
As my esteemed colleague Ken D states, ‘it has indeed been a challenge that has polarised opinions.’ I am sure that in his heart (of librarian) hearts he knew from the beginning that he was at a serious disadvantage using only the free web in this challenge but he has made a valiant effort none the less and on some occasions even received sympathy votes for his efforts.
This aim of this challenge was to promote our authoritative electronic resources and I think we have achieved our aim. For worthwhile information retrieval you can’t go past a library. I will sum up by quoting one of the comments from Round 3: “I voted for Jane B because she is a librarian and librarians rule!”
Many thanks to the good people who voted for “That Search Engine”. The web crawler, database, search algorithm, and ranking algorithm also send their gratitude.
It is a challenge which has at times polarized opinion. In life there are few issues which are either black or white. The truth is normally somewhere in the middle. The use of BOTH online databases and free internet resources will inevitably result in the retrieval of relevant, accurate and timely information, and of course happy customers.
To the tune of Ebony and Ivory, I head into the sunset, bidding you a fond farewell, hoping we can all live in perfect harmony.
We’re pitting Mosman Library’s online reference collection against what you can find from the search box on the world wide web!
Each day during Library & Information Week we’ll be posting a question that represents the range of queries that we get at Mosman Library.
The questions have been moderated by Ellen Forsyth of the State Library of NSW.
You decide who gives the best answers and wins the challenge.
Our Reference Librarian Jane B will represent Mosman Library. She’ll use only Mosman Library’s electronic resources to answer the question.
Our Internet & IT Services Librarian Ken D will represent the search engine. He’ll use only freely-available web resources to formulate his answer.
Each player has 45 minutes to research the question.
They have another 45 minutes to write up their answer and outline their search strategy.
Each day’s question will go online at 10am AEST. The answers will be published at noon.
You can vote once on each round. Voting will be open for 24 hours for each round.
The winner will be presented the trophy on Monday 1 June.
Want to know what we’re playing for?
The 2009 Challenge Cup is a superb GIF hand-crafted by Mosman Council’s graphic designer.
It will be awarded to the team that has won the most rounds at the close of voting on Saturday 30 May.
