[WEB4LIB] In defense of stupid users

[Nina McHale]

Miller's carmaker analogy is particularly apt, as is, I believe, a comparison to what's currently happening in the music industry.  Music listeners are voting for the iTunes model with their wallets--on our campus, one might get the impression that iPods are issued with student IDs--yet the RIAA stubbornly refuses to acknowledge what certainly looks to be a viable business model.  We can ignore what our users want, insisting that it's better our way, but then we shouldn't be surprised if they go away. I'd rather be Apple than the RIAA.

There's no reason to be scared of Googlization, especially for us WEB4LIB types--if anything, it's job security.  We just need to focus less on "jacking up the dashboard" and more on what's under the hood. As an aside, I put WebFeat under the hood at my last job, and while it wasn't perfect, it's still the federated search we chose over the others.

My random two bits, although I'm not sure I've added anything...can anyone turn away from preaching to the choir, and offer up something to Bernie's requested discussion, or are we mostly with Miller on this? :)

Nina

-- 
Nina McHale, Honda driver and iPod listener
Reference Librarian/Web Services Coordinator
Lauinger Library
Georgetown University
Washington, DC 20057
nlm25 at georgetown.edu
202-687-6818



Sloan, Bernie wrote:

>I don't recall seeing any discussion of this Todd Miller op ed piece
>from the March 15 Library Journal:
>
>"In the library world, we spend a remarkable amount of time and energy
>larding up our search interfaces with umpteen filters, Boolean
>pull-downs, radio buttons, and so on...After we've built the ultimate
>stretch Cadillac of search engines, we proceed to 'educate' the user
>about constructing searches in native command languages. And we're
>incredulous when Johnny turns to Google instead of to the awesome
>nuclear engine we've constructed."
>
>Miller, Todd. In defense of stupid users. Library Journal, 130(5), 58.
>March 15, 2005.
>http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA509607 
>
>Bernie Sloan
>Senior Library Information Systems Consultant, ILCSO
>University of Illinois Office for Planning and Budgeting
>616 E. Green Street, Suite 213
>Champaign, IL  61820
>
>Phone: (217) 333-4895
>Fax:   (217) 265-0454
>E-mail: bernies at uillinois.edu
>
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