[WEB4LIB] RE: Information Literacy (was Jargon...which was Usabil

[Leo Robert Klein]

At 01:23 PM 5/17/2002 -0700, Bill Drew wrote:
>I am going to play the devil's advocate here.  Why should we use jargon
>written for librarians by librarians?  The users could really care less
>about such things.  I am not talking about dumbing down.  that is a
>different issue entirely.

I agree with the devil here.  Many librarians who I've talked to would like 
to make the site "an instructional opportunity".   They're not at all 
comfortable putting things in terms the students use themselves or would 
understand.  In fact, the very idea that we should actually cater to what 
the students _want_ is a foreign notion --- since everyone knows students 
don't have a clue.  As far as I know, the students _want_ to hang out on 
the beach -- an option of course which the library currently doesn't 
supply.  What the students want from us -- and generally what they've been 
sent by their instructors to get -- is three articles and a book or two in 
order to complete an assignment.  There's no "dumbing down" to my mind in 
fulfilling this need in terms the students can understand.

But still the counter-argument rages.  After a while, my mind tends to 
wander and I start seeing visions of Steve Krug's book dancing around the 
light fixtures.

LEO


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Leo Robert Klein                                Library Web Coordinator
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