Teaching useful skills to our users (was In defense of stupid users)

[Carol Dales]

Hmmmm...could we rename this thread? If my students peer over my
shoulder and read this long thread about "stupid users", I'm in trouble!

While I agree with Todd Miller that interfaces, particularly library
catalogs, do need simplification, I think we should resist the urge to
reduce all database searches to a uniform interface with few options.
Instead, particularly in academic libraries, shouldn't we be teaching
skills that enhance our users' searching and apply to their lives even
when they're not searching databases?

Although we never call it that, defining just what you want in specific
terms is a Boolean search--I teach this as "being picky". If I tell the
salesperson I want a shirt that's red, I'll probably be snowed under by
thousands of shirts that aren't at all what I wanted: the wrong fabric,
too expensive, the wrong size and so on. But that's my fault for not
being specific. And that's just like entering a typical one or two word
search. 
However, if I say I want a shirt that's red AND cotton, I'll get fewer
shirts. If I add AND not over $50, I'll be even closer to what I want.
And so on--the universal principle being that the more requirements you
make of the database (or Google, if you will), the fewer results you
will receive and those results will be more like what you want. There's
no particular need to call this Boolean searching; it's simply providing
enough information to get what you need. And that's why we generally
teach the advanced screens of databases and of Google in our classes.

On this or another list (sorry, I don't recall the details), someone
taught controlled vocabulary through the metaphor of ordering a Big Mac
at Burger King. Users see quickly how to use the language the database
understands to get what they want---and are happy to use the tool
provided to find out what that vocabulary is.

That said, I'd be the first to agree that in a public library setting,
the quick search and go approach is usually most appropriate, and that
it's not always offered by the software or the staff.



E. Carol Dales
Library Distance Learning Instruction & Services Coordinator
California State University, Dominguez Hills
 
(310) 243-2088
cdales at csudh.edu
http://library.csudh.edu/
 
"Live as if you were to die tomorrow...
 Learn as if you were to live forever."
 
 Mahatma Gandhi


-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Jimm Wetherbee
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 12:51 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: In defense of stupid users

| This is why I would argue for a lightened emphasis on "information
| literacy" and a greater emphasis on designing more useful tools.
[--jimm replies] While I dislike the term "information literacy," and
agree
that what patrons need are better tools to search through the wealth of
data
that is out there, there is still something to be said for at least some
aspects of information literacy. 

A fair bit of what we do is not an intrinsic good, but a skill to some
other
end.  Developing good Boolean search strategies is not something that
either
is easily applicable to the course of one's life nor is it like the
ability
to appreciate fine art.  If it were not necessary for using many
databases,
none of us would bother with it.  One the other hand, there are some
things
that information literacy is good for.  One is the ability to define as
precisely as possible what it is one is after.  Doing so in itself
assists
in selecting the type of sources one needs as well as what information
satisfies the query. I wager that really is the point of all those pesky
questions we ask patrons in reference interviews.  We are clarifying in
our
minds (and theirs) just what they are looking for and in turn are
demonstrating a discipline that patrons can take with them elsewhere.
Another skill is the ability to judge whether the information one has
pulled
up is at all valuable.

--jimm


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