Steven Carr schrieb:
> As fun and different as it is, it still is does not addess what many of
> us are saying are the real issues here -
>
> Can we really anticipate who our users are going to be and how they
> will want to access, digest, and use the information?
>
Library clientele is notoriously heterogeneous and thus impossible to
pin down to some profile or a small set of profiles.
What they have in common, and increasingly so, is web experience,
including, of course, searching.
> Do we really believe that we have the ability to hone the mindset of
> our users, or even train them to understand what they are looking at?
>
For many, indeed, their favorite search engine *is* the Internet. Focus
on this mindset (of which I'm uncertain how to characterize it)
> Are we ever going to be willing to have public access systems that
> work the same way? That have the same conceptual underpinnings? That
> customers might have a chance of having a common understanding of
> how library interfaces work?
>
Had we ever been willing to search the Internet all in the same way?
Nothing succeeds like success, here as everywhere. Maybe outsourcing
the catalog is the way to get there.
B. Eversberg
Received on Thu Jun 22 2006 - 08:38:53 EDT