Students use of search engines -Reply -Reply

[KAREN SCHNEIDER]

My apologies for including most of the previous post, but Groupwise
makes it very difficult to respond to selective portions of a message, and
I didn't want to lose context.

Steven, I 100% corroborate what you say.  Our most popular Internet
class at our libary is the basic "catalogs" class and it is designed to teach
good habits.  It's amazing how people will assume that plunging into a
massive contextless database and floundering with thousands of hits is a
good first strategy, and you won't find the folks designing these tools
telling you otherwise.  I think the best response is to do what you are
doing--teach them the right way.  Show them the consequences of their
ways... use really strong examples.  Use your OWN errors as examples,
too--folks really like that.  We have also placed our training guides up on
the 'net and push, push, push folks to read them.  Intervention at the
point of searching is invaluable as well.  We show them good tools--start
them off with our page that discusses each tool--teach by example, etc. 
Asking "how are you doing" isn't even good enough--I'm not too shy to
ask if I can look at a patron's history list (needless to say I wouldn't
*intrude* if I weren't wanted, but despite all the furor elsewhere people
seem to be using the library here to defend the environment or at worst
look up a florist).  

I think user education is something we can exploit to everyone's benefit. 
We are clearly positioned to do this educaiton and make it relevant. 
They are eager to be educated and empowered.  And as long as every
month breeds new proprietary tools with yet one more crazy interface,
we have some serious job security.  ;)

Now back to writing next week's tip sheets--

Karen G. Schneider
schneider.karen at epamail.epa.gov
opinions mine alone

>>> Steve Cramer <scramer at davenport.edu> 05/31/96 10:17am >>>
"Are librarians encountering evidence that these disparate protocols are
contributing to end-users' confusion concerning the correct way to
search?"
Nicholas G. Tomaiuolo
__________________________
Whew! There's room for a few dissertations here.


The results: the students did surprisingly well (the students have been
teen-ages, college staff and faculty, and adults from the general public).
Most answered the questions without too much time or difficulty, and
few expressed displeasure with the search-tool interface.

*On the other hand*, outside of the Internet training seminar
environment, I've noticed that *few* people who use my college library
(students and the general public) take the time to learn about whatever
search engine they happen to be using (whether it's a Web search engine
or a periodical index on CD-ROM). They sit down and starting typing
keywords, without reading the FAQ, or seeing if there is a subject index
(for a CD-ROM), or even looking at the concise, one-page hand-out
written by a librarian and displayed right next to the monitor. Because
they don't learn how a database works or what their option are, they end
up with a lousy search -- extremely low relevancy.
Garbage in, garbage out!

How can we convince our patrons that finding good information takes a
little planning and a little work?

Steve Cramer
Library, Davenport College of Business
Holland, Michigan USA scramer at davenport.edu