We don't expect people to know how to drive a car without some instruction.
Using your phone, camera, DVD player, or IPod takes some learning. People
don't instinctively know how to create a personal web page or make waffles.
(Yes, I know I'm talking about in extremes, here).
There is at present no way to make everything about searching for
information on the internet (or in library catalogs) completely transparent,
totally intuitive and at the same time totally effective. People must be
willing to learn and apply SOMETHING to the process. But, we still want
them not to have to learn more than they have the tolerance for .....
understanding that the tolerance of most people is pretty low.
Many years ago, when the NOTIS system was first adding keyword searching to
its online catalog (early 80s), a young programmer was heard to utter that
users ought to know how the machine "thought" so they could understand how
to retrieve information. Needless to say, all the librarians gave a
resounding NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT to that viewpoint. It shouldn't be necessary
for users to be initiated into the mysteries of searching to be able to get
information. But we aren't yet sufficiently Star Trekkian to be able just
to say "Computer, what is the xxxxxx" and have the computer retrieve exactly
what we wanted (even if we couldn't figure out how to say it). We're still
in the "how quaint" stage of development (to quote Dr. Scott, as he gave up
and typed a query into the computer)
Janet Swan Hill, Professor
Associate Director for Technical Services
University of Colorado Libraries, CB184
Boulder, CO 80309
janet.hill_at_colorado.edu
*****
Tradition is the handing-on of Fire, and not the worship of Ashes.
- Gustav Mahler
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Alexander Johannesen
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 5:10 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] What do users understand?
On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 02:08, Bernhard Eversberg <ev_at_biblio.tu-bs.de>
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?
Oh, come on! What is this antiquated thinking doing here, if not as an
example of just how wrong you guys are getting stuff? Seriously, this
is perhaps the craziest thing I've read here so far, insisting that
people have to learn a damn thing about librarianship and metadata in
order to get some good help. Librarians everywhere are trained as
specialists in metadata and helping people find the info they're
after. That is their job; to help people. Let me reiterate; their job
is to help people. If you create systems you need special
understanding to use, you've failed miserably.
Let me say that again; if you've created systems that demands that
people need to learn how *you* think, you've *failed*. This is not to
say that people won't learn new stuff, nor that we can't expect them
to do so, but to require it? Massive fail.
Regards,
Alex
--
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Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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Received on Fri Mar 13 2009 - 15:49:03 EDT