I do wish library research databases were simpler to use for our students and faculty. However, I don’t think Dr. Jacobs’s suggestion to put “greater emphasis…to improve the search tools” is the answer.

1. If you want the Google experience applied to research, then go use Google Scholar. Make sure you set the Library Links option (if you attend or work at an Ohio college or university use this link enabled for OhioLINK) in Scholar Preference settings to be able to access subscription based full-text journal articles paid for by your library.

2. The native JSTOR search interface isn’t that bad. Granted, JSTOR’s advanced search syntax isn’t always intuitive. However, taking 5 minutes or less to figure it out will save you a lot of time and provide better results than using Google. 

3. Librarians can encourage EBSCO, Gale, ProQuest, et al to dramatically improve their search interfaces, expose their metadata to Google, or even license Google’s search algorithm. In the end, however, these research database providers have invested to much of their money in developing their underlying database structure and search interfaces to have much incentive to change and be more like Google.  

4. Those “terrible research database” user interfaces allow you to do a much more precise search. Google gives us good enough results. The clunky research database interface allows the student or faculty member to have greater control over the results returned.

5. I have a hard time believing that Dr. Jacobs could not access the article knowing the citation. He doesn’t provide enough information in the article to fully understand why trying to find the article was such a challenge that an ISSN had to be used.

6. Searching the scholarly literature is only part of the research process. Students and faculty still need to apply human intellect before even going to a search box and relying/expecting an algorithm to do the heavy lifting for them.

A fellow Ohio academic librarian I follow re-tweeted this on February 21:

S3101.01 OH S Bill 5: “A marriage may only be entered into by one man and one woman. ” How is that relevant to budget crisis?

I was a bit taken aback when I first read the tweet. I didn’t understand the connection between the “fiscal responsibility” line coming out of Columbus and its relationship to traditional marriage. I did what any good librarian would do and went looking for the source.

Here is the text of Chapter 3101.01.C (to be exact) as currently written in the Ohio Revised Code.

(C)(1) Any marriage between persons of the same sex is against the strong public policy of this state. Any marriage between persons of the same sex shall have no legal force or effect in this state and, if attempted to be entered into in this state, is void ab initio and shall not be recognized by this state.

(2) Any marriage entered into by persons of the same sex in any other jurisdiction shall be considered and treated in all respects as having no legal force or effect in this state and shall not be recognized by this state.

(3) The recognition or extension by the state of the specific statutory benefits of a legal marriage to nonmarital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes is against the strong public policy of this state. Any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of this state, as defined in section 9.82 of the Revised Code, that extends the specific statutory benefits of legal marriage to nonmarital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes is void ab initio. Nothing in division (C)(3) of this section shall be construed to do either of the following:

(a) Prohibit the extension of specific benefits otherwise enjoyed by all persons, married or unmarried, to nonmarital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes, including the extension of benefits conferred by any statute that is not expressly limited to married persons, which includes but is not limited to benefits available under Chapter 4117. of the Revised Code;

(b) Affect the validity of private agreements that are otherwise valid under the laws of this state.

You may recall, that the people of Ohio voted to amend the Ohio Constitution on November 2, 2004 to define marriage to be between one man and one woman. The legislature codified the amendment into the Ohio Revised Code in Section 3101.01.

Now, back to the present.

Here is the proposed change to Section 3101.01 in Ohio SB 5 ”As Pending in the Senate Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee”

As you probably noticed, the lines with strike through text is the part being changed.

Andrew Sullivan posted early this evening Just Balancing the Budget. He picked up on the  ”no same-sex marriage” part of Ohio SB 5 and asking what that has to do with financial reform. (I wrote him a shorter version of what I am writing here and he has since updated his post.) I did some searching and found other blogs asking the same question.  As you have probably figure out by now, there isn’t any relationship.

The proposed text to be removed in SB 5 relates to Chapter 4117 mentioned in  Section 3101.01. Chapter 4117 is the section of the Ohio Revised Code defining public employees collective bargaining. Public employee collective bargaining is what SB 5 is supposedly reforming.

Long story short…SB 5 does not insert any ban on same sex marriage or civil unions into the Ohio Revised Code. The wording that some people are jumping on has been in place for over six years. The reference to Section 3101.01 removes a reference to another section which is being overhauled.

What I find most interesting is that I don’t see any mention of Section 3101.01 in the final bill as passed by the Senate this afternoon.

And now for something completely different, 7BF2AMYNQXNF. Yep, you guessed correctly. I'm claiming/reclaiming my blog with that short code.  

I have dropped the library+instruction+technology as the title of this blog. I am now using my name. I should have made this switch a long time ago. The time is right, since I am making some changes to my server and also not doing as much library instruction. 

Another change I should have made awhile back was to make my blog the default when visiting http://whitis.us. I realize this will break some links at "The Google," but I'm not concerned. Google will eventually catch up and I will rely on the intellectual curiosity of site visitors pointed here by Google to figure it it out if they run into a 404.

My goal is to write more in 2011. Place your bets now. I had high hopes for 2010. I believe enough time has passed and I can now start reflecting, in a generalized way, about my transition to academic library director. I walked into a challenging situation and have had some success in making positive change in the last two years.