Monday, June 12, 2006, 2:18:48 AM, you wrote:
BE> What, OTOH, *should* catalog users learn in order to be successcul
BE> users? Nothing at all? "You need not think!" above the input slot - is
BE> that the ultimate ideal?
Of course users SHOULD learn how to be successful. In fact, most
librarians and other information professionals could learn more about
how things SHOULD be done.
When you have tens of thousands of students and/or public library
patrons, however, the vast majority will never be willing to be taught
unless it is somehow required (as in a "library skills" type of
class). The general tenor of desires these days is "just good enough
to get by". That is true not just for the majority of students, but
for almost all non-students. As long as they get an answer, not
necessarily the RIGHT answer (assuming there is one right answer),
they're going to go away happy, or stay at home happy after remotely
accessing your resources.
Finally, though I agree that we SHOULD teach students more about how
to search successfully, if one is writing a freshman paper on some
nice general topic, does it really matter if they find the "best" of
thousands of articles on abortion, Iraq, local history, or anything
else? After all, they come in with instructions from the professor
that they must find "two books, three articles and a government
document" to include in their paper. Most won't even bother finding
that fourth article.
dan
--
Dan Lester, Data Wrangler dan_at_RiverOfData.com 208-283-7711
3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho 83716-7115 USA
www.riverofdata.com The Road Goes On Forever....
Received on Mon Jun 12 2006 - 13:33:21 EDT