I like your comment, Sharon. Just as an anecdote I never seem to tire of
telling: It reminds me of how in 1994 I gave a talk on features that a
fault-tolerant OPAC should have. A colleague replied: "But do we want
people in our libraries who cannot spell properly?". As civil servants
German librarians cannot be "shown the door", you know.
Ursula
Sharon Foster schrieb:
> When I was a software developer on embedded systems, if I had
> suggested to my boss that a bug report was really due to "user error,"
> I probably would have been shown the door.
>
> I have not done extensive studies, and I haven't read extensively in
> the field, but I do use an online catalog, and I do work at a
> reference desk and listen to the stories of people who have in good
> faith tried to use the catalog but have given up.
>
> Please don't ever tell the user "no results found." There must be
> something close to what they asked for. Maybe they misspelled the
> title. Maybe they typed in "firstname lastname" instead of "lastname
> comma space firstname." Maybe they didn't use the correct LC subject
> heading.
>
> The only thing that most OPACs teach the average public library user
> is, "Don't use the catalog, just go straight to the reference desk."
>
> Sharon M. Foster, 91.7% Librarian
> Speaker-to-Computers
> http://www.vsa-software.com/mlsportfolio/
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Tim Spalding <tim_at_librarything.com> wrote:
>
>>> Really? Isn't this saying that we should never expect them to be able to
>>> learn a thing? To insist 'they' always know enough and all faults are
>>> ours? I'not sure.
>>>
>> This is a very interesting question. I'd love to read something
>> thoughtful about how an interface "teaches" you something—how you can
>> simultaneously be intuitive and easy, and be "moving someone along" to
>> something deeper. Interfaces do teach. Mostly they do it
>> unintentionally. What if we thought deeply about that teaching?
>>
>> So, I'd love to read about it, and talk about it. I just feel that the
>> library world is *dreadfully* invested in the idea that bad interfaces
>> (widely construed) are "teaching" something. You hear the "teaching"
>> defense a lot in libraryland. Much of the time, it's a dodge--an
>> effort to excuse a bad interface. Sometimes what's being taught is
>> actually harmful. My favorite example of that was a discussion on
>> AUTOCAT about the "educative" effects of Dewey—that in grappling with
>> that embarrassing fossil you're learning something about the world. As
>> I see it, apart from learning that fiction and Buddhism are
>> unimportant, you're learning something deeply limiting--that knowledge
>> is a tree.
>>
>> So, there's something to the idea of "teaching" interfaces, but I'm
>> wary of libraryland running to that idea. It'd be like asking AA to
>> investigate the positive health effects of red wine.
>>
>> Tim
>>
>>
>
>
--
*****************************************
Prof. Ursula Schulz
HAW Hamburg, Fakultät DMI
Department Information
Berliner Tor 5
20099 Hamburg
Tel.: +49 (0)40 42875 3614
Fax: +49 (0)40 42875 3609
E-Mail: uschulz_at_uni-bremen.de
www.bui.haw-hamburg.de/pers/ursula.schulz/
******************************************
Received on Thu Mar 12 2009 - 14:29:20 EDT