APL Answers

Google has decided to abandon its 4-year-old service, Google Answers, which hired researchers to answer questions on everything from school homework to business plan ideas. Google's service required its users to pay a researcher anywhere from $2 to $200. The company collected a 50-cent commission on each question, with the remainder going to the researchers who responded to the question. Yahoo started a competing service last year that lets people ask questions and get responses from other Yahoo users for free, and this service has been much more popular. The Austin Public Library also has a free online answer service, and we encourage everyone to use it. Ask A Librarian provides brief answers, research help, Web sources, and information about the Library's collection, databases, services, online catalog, and customers' Library accounts.