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

[Sarah Graham]

I think we're getting away from Blake's original question about the larger
philosophical issue of whether we use our web sites to teach, rather than
the related issue of whether we should use jargon on our web sites.

One issue in particular I'm thinking about is the fact that my library's
recent usability test uncovered something that librarians have been
observing for some time - that users are not distinguishing between web
sites, individual web pages, and databases. Examples of such confusion are:
student thinks they are searching the web when they are searching a
database, student thinks they are still on a library web page when they are
searching a database, student says "I used something on the internet to look
up a book the other day and I can't remember what it was," etc., etc. 

My question is: should we be doing a better job of teaching our users the
difference between web sites and databases? Should we just be doing this in
our library instruction classes (e.g. should we reframe our definitions of
information literacy to state that the person should be able to distinguish
between web sites, databases, and other types of web programs/software), or
should are there some creative things we could be doing on our web sites to
assist users to do this? 


Sarah Graham
Coordinator of Web Development/Reference Librarian
Emerson College Library

-----Original Message-----
From: Karen Harker
To: Multiple recipients of list
Sent: 5/17/2002 5:12 PM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: Information Literacy (was Jargon...which was

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
     See Also:
     www.LISNews.com