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

[Karen Harker]

Where else are they using these terms?  Will they use them in their chosen field?  Will they ever use these terms outside of a library?

If not, why teach them?  If they use different terms in their fields, why must they translate into library terms?

We are not training users to become librarians...we are teaching them how to find the information they need. 



Karen R. Harker, MLS
UT Southwestern Medical Library
5323 Harry Hines Blvd.
Dallas, TX  75390-9049
214-648-1698
http://www.swmed.edu/library/
>>> Blake Carver <carver.50 at osu.edu> 05/17/02 15:37 PM >>>
Well, I guess I'm NOT really advocating for the use (or especially the over 
use) of jargon, but it could easily be argued we are doing our users a 
favor (or favour depending on where you are) by teaching them commonly used 
terms. True the users could care less about such things, but we are in the 
business of imparting knowledge, and if we can make someone wiser through 
our site and they didn't even notice (That is there was little or no effort 
on their part to learn something that could potentially be useful to them 
in the future), then we've done a good job.
The other side is the site should be 100% jargon free, and stick with the 
lowest common denominator.
I'm not sure either approach is completely correct, perhaps the answer lies 
somewhere in the middle.

At 04:11 PM 5/17/2002 -0400, you 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.
>
>Bill Drew


------------------------------------------
Blake Carver
Web Librarian
The Ohio State University Libraries
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