Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
<snip>
What I had in mind was not behavior but case studies looking at the
actual questions: What types of questions, what tools have been used,
was the search successful (or good enough), what other tools might have
been used. And esp., was a search done in GB or GS, was it successful,
or if not: was the search not clever enough or was it the wrong tool. Etc.
Maybe one should set up a project that invites users to ask for help
if they have been unsuccessful or less than satisfied with search
results. Those users might be interested to help improve services.
Haven't seen studies along these lines, but they should enlighten us
a bit about the necessity of catalogs and library collections and what
they should be able to do. For indeed, right now there is too much
generalization and speculation.
</snip>
Catalogers are the experts on how patrons *should* use the library tools, but they are certainly not the best to determine how patrons actually use their tools. The experts on the second part are reference librarians and the people who study user behavior and scholarly communication. Still, there are some excellent studies on user behavior that can be considered right now.
One of the issues I point out to my students in my info lit workshops is: what does a "successful search" mean today? In the library world of multiple controls, we can actually determine objectively if a search is "fair/good/better/best" but in Google there are no controls, no yardsticks, no standards, so it is extremely difficult to determine how good a search is except by basing it on someone's feellings: "I am happy" "I am unhappy" "I'll settle for it." In each of these examples, it is almost impossible to know if a search is "fair/good/better/best" in any sort of objective sense.
With traditional library tools, a person's feelings are irrlevant. A search result may make them happy, angry, sad, or bored; it simply doesn't matter. Since search results today have so much on feelings today, I think we must consider what it means to "improve services" in such a scenario as well.
James L. Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
Rome, Italy
Received on Thu Oct 29 2009 - 05:13:41 EDT