serving the user/cutting through the haze

I mentioned in my last post that teachers and librarians can tend to be "know-it-alls".  In that same vein, Weigand's article, "Mom and Me: A Difference in Information Values" points out that librarians (and I think educators in general) often feel their method of research is best.  I have to admit that when it comes to information searching, use, or storage, I have gotten set in my ways.  Another point I gathered from Wiegand's essay is that the search process may not be the only place where teacher/librarian and user disagree:  the patron may be looking for an entirely different outcome than the librarian assumes, as was the case with Wiegand's mother and car-shopping.  Assuming is where we need to tread carefully and go back to Elmborg's initial interview.  In our eagerness to serve and impart knowledge, it is all too easy to project our own values, priorities, and interests onto a patron's search process.  This reminds me once again that sometimes I need to shut my mouth and listen!

Listening to student needs is essential to being "student-centered", a popular phrase in education, whose core idea has seeped into reference work.  Being user-centered means catering to the users' informational and, to some extent, emotional needs.  In "Toward a User-Centered Information Service",   Morris' loose description of the user-centered reference process seems a practical physical application of Weinberger's assertions about the messy process of digital searching.  Who better to bridge the gap between the "essentialism" of the Dewey system and the dynamic human searcher than another human?  The article shares researcher Dervin's suggestion of finding a systematic process inherent in the user's ostensibly chaotic method of searching.  I disagree with the idea of a set process somewhat, as Weinberger points out, there is an intuitive and useful quality to a non-linear process like we use on the internet, though it may seem chaotic to some.  Unlike Weinberger, I do not think this process has to be limited to the digital realm.  Morris describes the process as guided by the "uncertainty principle" in Kuhlthau's research, where "individuals...seek meaning rather than answers" (23).  The librarian, by "facilitating problem solving" (24), can provide that internet-like flexibility and individualization in a way the catalog cannot.

Or can it?  I was excited to read about how being user-centered could impact cataloging practices since Everything is Miscellaneous got me thinking and wondering about such things.  After reading the book, I understood (and agreed to some extent) that Weinberger thinks the digital miscellany is amazing.  Great.  Now what do I do with that?  Where do physical libraries fit into that?  Since libraries do typically have a digital element, such as the OPAC, it seems like it might be easy to incorporate more meaningful and intuitive search tools.  However, the records on the OPAC are still attached to physical books on physical shelves, and as Weinberger pointed out over and over in his book, the physical has its limitations.  Morris has presented some ways that reference librarians can bridge the gap between the user and the physical resources.  She also shows how cataloging systems can evolve to be more user-centered.  For example, I like the idea of catalogs recording which search terms lead to successful acquisition of a piece of information.  These suggestions could then inform subsequent searches, Amazon-style.  It was encouraging to read about how Weinberger's ideas can be applied in real life libraries.

from recylart.org

Reference work in an elementary school library looks different than in an academic library, but I see useful strategies to apply to school library reference in Elmborg's article, "Teaching at the Desk: Toward a Reference Pedagogy".  He asserts that reference librarians should seek to meet students at their individual levels of readiness and styles of learning.  Within the elementary school classroom, I strive to do the same, but the challenges are great when one has 20 or more different personalities with their unique styles and needs (or zone of proximal development).  On the other hand, the reference scenario is set up for meeting one person's unique needs, seeing the request through to completion with that patron or student.  One drawback I see that Elmborg also mentions is that reference librarians have such a short time in which to ascertain an individual's needs, whereas in a classroom the teacher has the whole year (or at least the semester) to build a relationship.  That's where the "cognitive interview" comes in, which seems like it would take quite a bit of practice to perfect.

Elmborg posits that questioning is an effective teaching strategy at the reference desk.  It is also a great tool in the classroom, though it is often harder to ask strategic questions than to just explicitly teach a skill.  I do try to use questioning with my students, knowing that it allows students to construct their own knowledge.  Further, higher-level questioning teaches students to think critically and keeps the students in control of the project.  This kind of gentle guidance is what I remember about the positive interactions I had with my undergraduate librarians.  However, another difficulty in using questioning is that tendency in teachers and librarians alike to want to be the "fount of all knowledge".  I think the fear that reference librarians make their positions obsolete by fostering independence in users is unfounded.  First, there are always new users, and second, once users have mastered information literacy skills at one level they may need you again to help take their abilities to the next level.