Re: What has LIS learned?

So, user-centered design is easier if we have flexible processes,
products and systems - "nimble" comes to mind - and nimble product &
project managers and programmers.  Flexibility and nimbleness need to be
built into the product from the ground-up.

Who is doing this, inside or outside of LibraryLand?

How do WE do it?

Mark Andrews, Creighton University

-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Ron Peterson
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 9:46 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] What has LIS learned?

While I agree that we need to be focused on our users in designing the
NGC or any other service we offer.  I don't think we should, or even
can, do that by "embracing their ever changing desires".  First, as Alex
said, users aren't very good at telling us what they want.  We can look
to libraries themselves for an example of this.  It has been said, the
reason we have such a crappy catalog currently is because the vendors
were giving us what we were asking for.  They were trying to meet our
desires.  Of course, we all had different desires, so they were not able
to "satisfy" any of us.  But worse than that, they were so busy chasing
our desires that they weren't working on making a better product.  They
weren't anticipating what was coming next, what advances in technology
could be applied to meeting the goals of their library clients.  As a
result, their business has stagnated.

We, as libraries and librarians, are supposed to be the experts in
connecting people to information.  I think it is a mistake to turn that
responsibility over to the users, to let them tell us how we should do
our jobs.  Not that we shouldn't get their feedback, formally and
informally.  We have a lot to learn from our users; how they find
information, how they use information, how they are creating
information, how they are communicating, what information they are
looking for, etc., but it is up to us to develop the means for them to
accomplish those goals.  That doesn't mean adding tags because they are
asking for it, but it may mean adding tags because it helps them find
the information they need.