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.

Information Technology and the De-skilling of Librarians
by Roma Harris

Although I understand that feminist issues remain in the workplace, I am not sure that I buy that because some routine tasks are being automated that women's work is necessarily under attack or underappreciated.  Also, at least in education I do not see any evidence to suggest that men in IT positions garner more respect than the women in teaching, paraprofessional, or other support positions--even though we do revere our tech guy.  Perhaps there is that much difference between the cultures of elementary schools and libraries, or maybe the 1986 study quoted to support this claim of inequality is just that out of date.  I would be interested to learn about current perceptions of various library positions.  I also don't appreciate that the article consistently calls clerical, secretary-style work "women's work" while ignoring the contributions that women could make to the new style of library work with its focus on teaching and guidance.
 
Another area where the article seems to date itself is in some of its complaints about the deprofessionalization of cataloging.  Because digital cataloging systems have been the norm for most or all of my conscious library-using life, concerns about the shift from manual to digital catalogs seems distant...and old news. The library survived that change and will weather others.  To me the moral of the story is that libraries and librarians must be ever-transitioning to keep up with technology and user demands.  Not to mention that Sunny's presentation last week demonstrated that with the plethora of sources available, patrons need explicit direction from a trained professional now more than ever. 

The article did resonate with me when it said that "[s]tandardization and routinization make professional activities more comprehensible to outsiders, and consequently subject to their evaluation and control" (p. 2).  It sounds as if libraries encounter the same struggle between accountability and self-determination that is currently facing public education.