[WEB4LIB] Patron Technophobia

[Joe Schallan]

Robert Tiess wrote:

>This is a vast problem, and I wonder what steps other libraries,
>as a whole, or librarians on their own are taking to reduce or
>eliminate the technophobia some patrons experience.

I am unaware of any large-scale human factors research
that was conducted *prior* to the deployment of our automated
catalogs and systems.  We librarians seem to have decided
they were a good deal and we just did it, the public be
damned.

Research into the human factors involved in the use of
information systems would seem to have been fertile
ground for our library schools.

Now we must provide after-the-fact remedies, and
besides patron training via workshops -- which many
of us are doing -- I would strongly urge the provision
of alternate modes of access.

How about printed guides and pathfinders?  Floor
plans?  What would be so terribly wrong with
maintaining a subject-only card file?  Many patrons
simply want the Dewey or LC number for a
subject area.  This wouldn't be a high-maintenance
item and would reap much good will from the
patrons.

[Disclaimer:  I am not Nicholson Baker's long-lost
twin brother.]

Donald A. Norman, in The Invisible Computer --
Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer
Is So Complex, and Information Appliances are the
Solution (MIT Press, 1998) makes the point that
the operation of a device shouldn't be more complex
than the task it was designed to perform.

Seems to me our automated catalogs (the device)
are much more complex than the task (following a
number to a shelf and plucking a book off it).
A somewhat disingenuous analogy, I agree,
but nevertheless the flipping of cards with fingers is
an intuitive mode of operation of hundreds of years
standing, whereas pushing a bar of Dove soap around
a pad to operate a pointer on a TV screen is pretty
bizarre and not intuitive at all.

No offense to Doug Engelbart, the inventor of the
mouse.  I *like* a mouse, but then I'm not everyone
and that's exactly the point.

Joe


---------------------------------
Joe Schallan
Reference Librarian
Glendale Public Library
5959 West Brown Street
Glendale, AZ  85302
   jschall at glenpub.lib.az.us
   (602) 930-3555 until April 1, then
   (623) 930-3555