In many libraries, we see collections that do not meet the needs of their users. This problem can affect small rural public libraries with limited budgets and prestigious academic libraries that have comprehensive print and electronic holdings. It’s easy to understand the problem of limited funds, but if a library has an excellent collection why would it fall short in meeting the needs of the library’s patrons? What’s the problem?
A collection is only as good as the methods we have to create access to it. You can have the most comprehensive and well-chosen collection, but if it is difficult to access, people will not use it. All of those fantastic and expensive databases and full-text journals you subscribed to are as good as useless if people can’t easily get to them or find what they’re looking for. Your wonderful print resources will not be found by students if they are unable to use your catalog properly. In many libraries it is the electronic middleware that is a problem, not the collection itself. It is the library’s catalog and methods of providing access to full-text journal articles. Having usable middleware between the users and the collection is just as important as the collection itself.
Many librarians have decried the fact that students are using Google more and more for their research. The reason they use Google is because it’s easy. While the quality of the information retrieved is not as reliable as that found in academic databases, there is no denying that Google is easy to use. And the only way libraries are going to convince dedicated Google users to use library databases is to make them easy to use as well. I guess the real question is this: should we be fixing the users or fixing the system? Information literacy is obviously important, but we should not simply teach the students to conform to an imperfect system. We should be making the system conform to the needs of the students and faculty.
I think the issue goes beyond Google, and has more to do with librarian culture. Working
in a public library, I can attest that to many people Google is not “easy” — its a mess.
Google is easy to students because they grew up with it, evolved with the Internet and have
a group of bookmarks that have been trustworthy to them. To someone well-versed in tradition
library thinking — that is, they expect subject authority and control — Google is just
a frustration. This is not to slag Google — I love Google — just to say that “easy” is
in the eye of the user.
When I worked the desk, I always noticed how the reference interview often appeared to have one
purpose — find a call number corresponding to the pertinent subject area. This approach
definitely has its advantages — for instance, it supports “serendipitous searching” —
but it really presumed that the person in front of me would be learning something that
fit into one of the LC (or Dewey) subject areas.
But now there are a whole new group of people — interdisciplinarians, cross-overs, knowledge
synthesizers whose desired information not only crosses call numbers, but also requires
a solid understanding of the culture of the discipline to go along with it. For instance,
you can’t just lead the English major to the HDs for an understanding of economics, because
they need to understand what all those Greek letters stand for. And while the dictionaries
and encyclopedias are helpful, they are often expensive for the amount people actually use them
(and therefore often out of date) and they are sometimes too general to be helpful.
I think a future model of information organization is anthro-institutional subject models.
That is, subjects are not objective areas of study, but “artifacts” left by disciples
belonging to various institutions. Google is already organized this way to a large degree.
Consider the way URLs are structured — the most standard tag is the .com, .org, .net, .ca,
etc. — these all represent broad institutions (the business world, not-for-profits, countries etc.) , not subject disciplines.
The problem is that re-organizing LC is not something current libraries can afford to do en
masse, so they are left somewhat making a choice between preserving the integrity of print
materials or joining in on the electronic world. Most libraries do both and therefore fail to provide “perfect” service to their clients. But that’s just my opinion on the whole thing.
Jeg hilser til klovnen. Jeg liker klovner veldig godt! Jeg har vrt p sirkus og sett klovner.
Meredith,
When you first wrote these, I thought “how wonderful” and I saved the links in my Bloglines clipping folder. I want you to know that I’m now re-reading these posts because they are relevant to a project I’m doing (1.5 years after you provided these words of wisdom). I also want you to know that over the months since you wrote these posts on middleware that I have pointed others to them. Thank you for doing them.
Jill