In defense of stupid users

[William Melody]

I think there's this assumption that the current library tools meet the 
needs of advanced users.  They don't at all.  I've seen library web 
interfaces that come close to being usable, but very, very 
few.  Researchers of all skill levels use Google because library tools are 
so atrocious.  Federated searching will help, but it's not the ultimate 
solution.  Apple doesn't try to pack all of the functionality of Final Cut 
Pro into an iMovie interface.  If librarians consciously recognized that 
library web interfaces as a whole are web /applications/ that need to have 
UIs that behave as expected, patrons wouldn't be turned off by 
them.  Google isn't going to go anywhere.  Therefore, the natural role of 
the library is as an advanced information retrieval system, and the 
interfaces should reflect that role.

The web presence of a large academic library (the only kind of library I 
know about) has become a web application to the users, but the user 
interfaces have not caught up.  That's probably the most fundamental 
difference between Google and libraries today: Google recognizes that it is 
an application and immediately provides you with the UI while libraries are 
still stuck in the mind set of web 'pages.'

- William Melody



William Melody
Interlibrary Loan
Northwestern University Library
1970 Campus Dr.
Evanston, IL   60208-2323
T. 847.491.3382
w-melody at northwestern.edu
www.bibliotheke.org