[WEB4LIB] Re: Patron Technophobia

[Kim Lord]

Hello all, 

With all due respect I need to take exception to some of this,


At 09:57 AM 4/2/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Robert Tiess wrote:
>snip

>
>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.

Any library staff worker that would actually have a "public be damned"
attitude would not or at least should not have a job for long.  At our
small to mid sized library, better access to our library's collection as
well the other libraries in the area was the issue.  Our circulation and
ill figures have increased steadily since we went to an automated PAC
system.  Surely not everyone has been thrilled with it....including some
staff, but a 50%+ increase in statistics must mean somebody's happy.  

snip

>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.

The card catalog...honestly any form of the card catalog, is just too high
maintenance for reasonable consideration. Hours a week were spent filing
cards into cabinets that not many people used. We do have the Dewey system
displayed near the PACs for the folks that really just want to browse.
>
snip

>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.



This is an old concern and I certainly don't want to start a war here, but
in our small to mid size public library we had many patrons who were
confused by the card catalog and I'm certain were embarrassed to ask for
help or except help when it was offered because after all this was supposed
to be a skill learned in grade school...right?   The major problem with the
card catalog, beyond the volume of staff hours that were spent to maintain
it, was that many people, especially students would come across the first
Dewey number they could find and then would assume all the material on that
subject was all at that number.  Every so often I would get a complaint
that we had so little on, for example AIDS, only to find that the patron
had found the books on the medical aspects of but had completely missed the
social aspects of, which would be cataloged in a different location.  A
patron now can type AIDS into the PAC and find the 50+ books that we have
and would be forced to narrow the search down a bit and would be much more
inclined to ask for help.   I would absolutely shudder at the prospect of
bringing back any part of the card catalog if for the only reason that it
was a substantial amount of work to maintain....time that is now being
spent dealing with people directly...helping them to narrow their focus if
needed, and make the material in this building and other libraries all that
more accessible to them.

Human nature being what it is, there is no perfect solution that is going
to make everybody happy.  But this is where the human element is so
important.  Computer interfaces that are friendly and make sense are
paramount, but really the staff of a library is the first "interface" with
which the public sees.  Listening skills, really understanding what a
person is asking..good old fashioned reference skills...that's what we
still need to focus on.

Kim Lord
Assistant Director
Kent Library
Suffield CT

All the usual disclaimers apply......