K.G. Schneider:
"A fallacy I keep hearing is that a complex tool is required for complex
research. Yet what is complex about research is the process of winnowing
and directing knowledge discovery, and I haven't seen any convincing
evidence that transmitting the information for how to successfully
research a topic is improved by software environments so difficult they
must be learned. It would appear the opposite is true: when the activity
is complex, tools must be simplified. Another fallacy seems to be that
the role of the librarian is to explain the functions of complex
software. I hope we have a more stable role in the pedagogical firmament
than that.
In any event, this discussion is all so many angels on heads of pins."
First, regarding angels and heads of pins, see P.S.
Second, one can't really even begin to appropriately "winnow" and
"direct knowledge discovery" until one has been made aware of the most
substantial work that has been done in a disciplinary area. The
traditional library framework - with its classification hierarchy and
subject headings that can also connect various "disciplines" - is one
very helpful tool that can make such awareness - and the research that
may follow from it - possible. This is where librarians - sometimes
very specialized ones - have had, and must continue to have, something
pedagogical to contribute.
Therefore, complex library tools *are* required for complex research
done in research libraries - I don't see how there can be any way around
this. At the same time, the patron can be guided by the user interface
itself. First of all, they can be taught (or reminded if they know) by
the screen in front of them that there are varieties of "quick and easy"
searching we all do... AND there are times that demand more complex
searching techniques (serious research). Second, simplifying the
interface and available tools to help people through this serious
searching would be good - and we should strive for this - but not by
undermining the underlying traditional library framework which has
proved useful to serious researchers for so long (user tagging can be a
helpful complement to this...)
Of course, this assumes that we are talking about really serious
research and interaction with the thoughts of others - and not just
quickly finding information to perhaps recategorize and put into just
any "new and exciting framework" that appeals to us and others at the
present moment. This means hard work that actually deals with the
complex discoveries, insights and arguments from the past that have been
preserved for us at some length - usually in books. This also assumes a
rather broad liberal arts background, I think, something else that is
evidently not too important to many educators - and librarians - these
days.
P.S.:
Bob Berghout and Garry Tee (volume 20, nos. 1 and 3) ask about the
origin of the ridiculous libel that the medieval scholastics examined
"such matters as how many angels could fit on the head of a pin". The
earliest mention I know of is in Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants
a Safe Way to Salvation (1638, reprinted 1972, 12th unnumbered page of
the preface), where he accuses scholastics (unnamed, of course) of
debating " Whether a Million of Angels may not fit upon a needles
point?" As to the truth of the allegation itself, H.S. Lang, author of
Aristotle's Physics and its Medieval Varieties (1992), and in a position
to know if anyone does, writes (p. 284): "The question of how many
angels can dance on the point of a needle, or the head of a pin, is
often attributed to 'late medieval writers' ... In point of fact, the
question has never been found in this form"... The middle ages attracts
this sort of story: "In the middle ages it was believed the earth was
flat", "Galileo showed medieval physics was wrong by dropping weights
from the Leaning Tower of Pisa", and so on.
Received on Mon May 07 2007 - 08:31:53 EDT