Really, I think a lot of our "we need a search like Google's" could be
remedied if we just optimized our current OPACs to be crawlable.
Perhaps we can set aside the "search behavior" for a moment and worry
about what happens /within/ the search results and /between/
resources.
-Ross.
On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 4:36 AM, Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu> wrote:
> Alexander Johannesen wrote:
>
>> The allegory breaks down, as we don't expect our users to *become*
>> librarians. We teach people to drive cars because they want to drive
>> cars. We don't teach them librarianship unless we want them to be
>> librarians.
>
> and
>
>> Learn and apply *something*, for sure, like new knowledge that's
>> actually valuable would be a good start. But to have them learn what a
>> title statement is as compared to just a title is *stupid*. When you
>> log on to your computer in the morning, do you type in your MAC
>> address number? Do you enter your own dedicated IP? Do you know how
>> TCP works? Configure the router before going online? Setting up your
>> DHCP server? Any clue about processor registers? Stack handling? Not
>> yet? How about hash control, or syslogs, or internal pipes, event
>> models, static vs. dynamic programming modes, imperative vs.
>> functional vs. objective programming, duck typing, SOA, SOAP, WS-*,
>> REST, REQUEST bind, and on and on and on. I doubt it (although I'm
>> happy to be corrected). The point here is that you're sitting on a
>> computer which is intensely more complex than any library system and
>> has an underlying culture and language which is far more complex than
>> the whole library world put together. Yet, you can use your computer
>> for your work every day without knowing *any* of that stuff.
>
> This is an interesting argument and correct so far as it goes (although I do think you are seriously underestimating the complexity of a research library, but that is beside the point here!).
>
> My experience is that people constantly have problems with their computers all the time, and they read entire books and sometimes take entire classes or workshops on, e.g. MS Excel, Word, Photoshop, and everything else. Even when they think they are doing something right, it's normally wrong or only 25% of what is possible.
>
> The fact is that the traditional catalog was designed primarily in the 19th century, and this system has been transferred practically in toto up to today without taking into account new system technologies. MARC was designed in the 1960s to share catalog cards among participating libraries and has not really changed since that time. We are still making catalog cards, only now it takes place in the computerized environment, and even this is breaking down because of serious drops in the level of record quality. It is obvious to me that this entire system is on the verge of collapse. Somehow, I think you'll agree with that last statement. :-)
>
> My primary concern is that we keep this system from collapsing--and everything should remain very practical. I admit that we *may* be able to create a system that automatically reads a users' thoughts to determine what he or she *really wants* (i.e. recreates the reference interview) and translates that into a query that returns a result that is more or less reliable (i.e. "all" the works by Leo Tolstoy and not simply a result that makes someone happy because they are blissfully unaware of what they are missing). So, while we *may* be able to create such a system it seems to me as if we would be building the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (i.e. push a button and you get precisely the information you want), it still seem to be a long way off in the future, several generations at least, unless of course, we want to redefine all of these tasks into something that Google can perform today (more or less) and say that a result that makes someone happy is good enough and anyt!
hing else is not worth the effort.
>
> While our administrators and even some of our governing bodies may like this conclusion, I do not want to accept it yet because first, it is untrue, and second, there are societal implications of proclaiming "GoogleTruth," so the practical question turns into: can we make something that is substantially better than what we have now, and do it in such a way that people may use it without complaining all the time, and maybe even like it in some ways, while most importantly in this economic climate: by using the resources and assets we currently have?
>
> One big advantage of having something with big problems is that improvements are much easier to see! Obviously, I think there are many improvements possible. LibraryThing has been an eye-opener to me in this respect and the entire library community owes Tim Spalding a huge debt of gratitude. But the fact is that information retrieval is a complex task and to expect a computer to simply do everything for you is not realistic... yet. It seems to me that some kind of training will be inevitable for as far as we can see. How can we make this training easy to find and palatable to the user?
>
> Many things can work together: research guides, tutorial podcasts, multiple database searching, cooperative ontology development, and on and on can make a huge positive impact in the user experience.
>
> These are some of the practical paths forward, I think. After all, this list is called "Next generation catalogs for libraries" and not "Final generation catalogs for libraries."
>
> Finally, to Tim's question:
>>> We don't expect people to know how to drive a car without some instruction.
>
>>If using a library should require instruction, can we give patrons the
>>finger if they don't use the catalog correctly?
>
> I think that's what librarians are getting all the time!
>
> Jim Weinheimer
>
Received on Tue Mar 17 2009 - 10:04:11 EDT