who is the primary user?

Who is the PRIMARY user of this thing we call the "catalog"?


As a librarian with the words "information architecture" in my title,
I always ask myself three questions whenever I deal with an
information system: 1) who are the users, and what do they want, 2)
what is the purpose of this thing, and how does it fit into the
context of my organization, and 3) what represents the content of the
system?

When asking about users I must remind myself of a number of things.
First I have limited resources, and therefore I can not be all things
to all people. I must make choices. I must prioritize. A "catalog"
may have many users, but some of them are more equal than others. For
example, a public library has a responsibility to the the local
population before they have a responsibility to a remote population.
Similarly, a special library in a company serves the needs of the
company, not the public, and certainly not other companies. College/
university libraries, while having some public service components,
are probably there to serve the students, faculty, and staff before
they serve the general population. After I define/articulate the
primary users of the system, then I go about discovering what those
people's needs are.

So, who is the primary audience of the "catalog"? While we might all
have different audiences in mind, I'd be willing to bet that the
primary audience of the catalog is NOT librarians.


--
Eric Lease Morgan
Head, Digital Access and Information Architecture Department
University Libraries of Notre Dame

I'm hiring a Senior Programmer Analyst.
See http://dewey.library.nd.edu/morgan/programmer/.