[Web4lib] Interesting Web/Library 2.0 data (wasparticpationSkillsfor Library 2.0 Leaders)

[Mark Costa]

On 5/8/07, Casey Bisson <cbisson at plymouth.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
> >> Why are undergraduate students the core audience?
> >> they also conduct the least amount of intensive research, are less
> >> enthusiastic about research, and are less connected  to the
> >> academic community.
> >
> > Well, not only are undergraduate students the largest group of
> > users at virtually all academic libraries, but at the large number
> > of academic libraries that are not at doctoral degree granting
> > institutions, they are effectively the sole user group.


That is why you cater your presence to your community.


And, like it or not, it's from those undergrads that tomorrow's
> teachers will come.


I am not sure what your point is here. Are you arguing that they won't be a
fan of the library because it didn't cater to their unsophisticated needs as
an undergraduate? As people move from undergraduate to graduate, and then on
to faculty, their information seeking behaviors change. Perhaps you can
argue we can catch them in transition. Much of what we offer is authority
and precision. Authority is not as important to an undergraduate as it is to
a graduate. Perhaps I went to a less than stellar university for undergrad,
but I was never graded on whether or not the theory in the scholarly paper I
used was the most current, or had the most weight in my field. That
certainly has become more important as I became more involved in academics.

Like I said before, there will be some undergraduates who require
sophisticated tools to meet their information needs. Perhaps it would be
more worthwhile to break users into three sophistication categories - low,
medium, and high. Google has the market locked down on the unsophisticated
users, leaving the medium and high's to us. Yet libraries are running around
chasing the low end users, hoping to generate large numbers over a dedicated
user base. We're losing because we can never offer the simplicity that they
do. www.google.com is always easier to type than library.someuniversity.eduis.

The jiggs up; technology has relegated what we do to a niche market. We no
longer serve "society's needs" in general, because someone else found out
how do to it much more cost effectively than us. The only market left for us
is the high end information seeker. What I am arguing is that we need to
focus on that person, or someone else will.


Simple needs, simple tools. Complex needs, complex tools.


Then we have to ask ourselves: will they direct their students to the
> library...will they support continued funding for the library?