Week 5: Understanding Patrons

Christine Pawley “Hegemony’s Handmaid”
I find this analysis from a ‘class prespective’ very fresh and invigorating in terms of inspiring a new outlook on what the field of library and information science fundamentally stands for and what the profession upholds as values and objectives for success. I think it’s interesting that Pawley cites these four trends in LIS curriculum: “links with the corporate world, professionalization, aspiration to scientific status, and stratification of literacy and institutions” (p123). As I was reading this I felt as if I was indulging in a little sneak peak into the dirty under wiring of the library academia world; instead of this unshakeable fortress of information and ethics, all of a sudden the library seemed to represent a crumbling institution that sold out to the corporate man in the interest of professional security. I guess it was this part in particular: “As long as LIS professional education is confined within the precincts of universities that have abandoned any pretense to independence, the curriculum will be influenced by the dominant corporate class. This influence is the payoff for the university status” (p. 138). To me, these statements are a pretty blatant claim that LIS programs have sold out to corporate demands and ideals of future professionals instead of instilling those goals like strong ethics, information access equity, and resistance to censorship that can be found at the heart of modern librarianship, or so I thought. This new point of view definitely brought new factors to light for me and made me reassess what it means to be a librarian in the modern era, but also made me aware of the intense need for critical thinking and forming your own opinions, even when the information is coming from a higher intellectual authority.

James K. Elmborg “Teaching at the Desk: Toward a Reference Pedagogy”
This constructivist learning theory and practical approach to fielding research questions sounds like a common sense idea to me; almost too logical and natural to even have to be said. Maybe that’s my impression from having worked many years already in customer service positions, where you always try to help the other person find what they’re looking for. The part that makes the most sense to me, and yet might be the part that is the hardest to put into practice, is the claim that providing a student with a simple, straightforward answer to their question is likely to be more harmful to them in the future than actually taking the time to walk them through all the steps of researching a topic. Without instilling a method of researching, the librarian ultimately leaves the student right where they started, though they might be able to turn in this paper. The student will have gained no knowledge that will help them the next time they need to find an answer, and I think the author is right to say that it is very important to teach a novice student who lacks researching skills not only what they need to do but also to help customize this method so that it works the most efficiently for the student and their particular habits and instincts when trying to seek information. Considering Marcella Genz articulates a valid point about relinquishing some of the librarian’s expertise and thus potentially undermining the profession, it seems contrary to the very nature of librarianship to deny someone information because of such a self-interested fear when you have the power to bring enlightenment to someone seeking knowledge. I agree with Elmborg that the reference desk could be an incredibly powerful teaching opportunity, considering the intimate dynamic of one-on-one interaction between student and information gatekeeper has so much more potential for implanting more deep-rooted wisdom than the classroom ratio of one teacher to thirty some students, or more depending on the size of the school. Though it might not be easy, this approach would reap some very fruitful results in the years and generations to come.

Wayne Wiegand “Mom and Me”
In this article the author develops the idea of a ‘personal information economy’ from Barbara Herrnstein Smith’s theory of ‘personal economy’, and provides an enlightening anecdote about his mother’s experience of purchasing a car. I like this idea of a personal information economy because I think it’s only natural that people absorb influences in life differently from everyone else and that will ultimately affect their own set of values. More importantly, it will also determine how those values and beliefs will filter the information they receive and shape the subsequent decisions they make. His mother is a great example of an older generation that has very different life experiences from us, the younger generations. She’s very involved in her church community and clings to traditional methods like what her friends and husband had always done before, even in the face of modern, reliable sources of information like Consumer Reports. Though talking to your friends about their personal experiences can be valuable in making a big decision, it isn’t the only source to consider or trust anymore. There are many more resources available to people today than there ever were before and this number will only increase in the years to come. As a librarian, it is critical to know what types of information people are looking for and what resources will provide them with the information they will value the most, or find the most useful based on their own frame of personal experience or personal information economy. Though it seems to make perfect sense, it will not be easy to implement, but rather should this idea should be a constant consideration for future librarians as we respond to patron inquiries.

Ruth C. T. Morris “Toward a User-Centered Information Service”
Throughout reading this article I couldn’t help but wonder if there hasn’t been significant development in the areas the author is suggesting. This article was published in January 1994 and the amount of technological progress is staggering since then; the Internet would have only begun to fully bloom by the mid-1990s. Aren’t the author’s ideas and suggestions already finding practical, daily use? For example, Morris recommends reconsidering when the user and the information professional interact and this meeting’s significance in the overall process of someone seeking information. She suggests that “designing an easy way for users to check on and retrieve missing items would be a good step forward” (p. 26), but isn’t that an option for users already? I’m pretty sure you can log onto library.wisc.edu and as a member of the UW community, you can request a book be put on hold if someone has it checked out, but merely the fact that you can go online and check whether or not a book is available and at which location would seem to me exactly what the author is advocating. Does that mean that the library world has entirely realigned itself with a constructivist user-centered sense-making model perspective? Of course not, but I think it would be very interesting to hear what this author thinks of all the changes since 1994 in terms of seeing her suggestions take shape in the methods of information users and seekers, especially in light of all the web-based systems and search engines that make finding information a friendlier affair.

Week 4: Organizing Information

Kevin Kelly “Scan This Book!”
What piqued my interest the most in this article is the section covering the battle between Google and the publishers. In particular, I was just thinking about this peculiarity when Kelly points out “one curious fact, of course, is that publishers only care about these orphans now because Google has shifted the economic equation” (Kelly, 10). In working to reclaim all these ‘orphaned’ books as Kelly calls them, which he says “about 75 percent of all books in the world’s libraries are orphaned” (Kelly, 8), Google would salvage so much information that no other entity seems to be able to afford to do. Surely the benefit to the general public of being able to access materials otherwise left in the dark outweighs some publishers’ petty claim to copyrighted ownership and thus elite privilege to all the monetary profits. Not that I’m advocating trouncing on anyone’s legitimate right to their own creative works, but having an option where Google would pull any book if someone could prove their ownership to these lost souls seems fair to me. I mean, no one wants to put the time, money, and effort into establishing ownership because the outlook is bleak of ever actually finding a concrete record, as Kelly said in his example of waiting some 3 years for a definitive answer from Random House publishing, until you hit them where it hurts most—their wallets. Shouldn’t the benefits of being able to efficiently pursue a massive stockpile of literary materials take precedence over the other option of leaving these orphans to waste away, unread and unaccounted for, because someone won’t be making the money they might be entitled to? With reasonable measures in place to protect legitimate owners, I think Google should be given the green light to take on a task nobody else is ambitious or financially capable of taking on.

Hope A. Olson “The Power to Name: Representation in Library Catalogs”
At one point the author calls Charles Cutter’s philosophy on creating a controlled vocabulary for a library classification system a “misguided democratic ideal” (Olson, 647). I disagree that his desire to create a uniform practice in library cataloging was ever a ‘misguided’ intention, but rather it was a product of his time that leads to a fundamental weakness in appropriately representing all the diversity encompassed by our modern society. Cutter lived during the nineteenth century, that would be before the Civil Rights Movement, Feminism Movement, and all the other events of the twentieth century that have helped to promote racial or gender equality. I looked up Cutter’s lifespan (14 March 1837–6 September 1903), which would mean he lived during the Civil War era; that existence is a world away from where we are today, only roughly 100 years later. For that time period, Cutter’s system would have represent the model library user quite well: male, white, educated, wealthy. That time period has passed though. It is evident to me that the author is a feminist, and so she is pushing the envelope even farther in the interest of equality. I agree the current system is ripe for updating in light of all the new issues and topics that need to be more efficiently and relevantly cross-linked to better serve a modern library user. Change is slow to come especially on the scale of changing the whole Library of Congress’ operating system, but every little push, like the awareness this article provides, helps.

Michael Buckland “Information as Thing”
After reading this article, I find it hard to deny that I am less clear on the definition of ‘information’, even after the round-and-around clarification this article provides. Nevertheless, I can understand, as evidenced by this article, how such a wide variety of things, not only data or facts or texts, allow someone to gain more knowledge on something than they had before, like Buckland lists as examples: “fossils, footprints, and screams of terror” (Buckland, 356). One would have to adhere very rigidly to a narrow definition of information to be able to exclude such examples of obviously informative things from a working definition. Buckland states that “to include objects and events, as well as data and documents, as species of information is to adopt a broader concept than is common” (Buckland, 356). But, how could anyone measure consistently or deny if someone claims to have been informed by something that would not necessarily fall within the accepted scope of a definition of ‘information’? I don’t think you can. If something helps someone by informing them on any aspect, then I think you would call that information, right? It seems trying to assign a specific, concise definition to a term as inclusive, yet broad, as ‘information’ is really a moot point. It cannot be defined in any terms except general, sweeping, vague words. Information, like language, is a living, ever-changing collection; how do you pin a sentence to all things knowledgeable and expect it to function as a reliable definition? Besides in the academic arena, I don’t think you do.

Week 3: Information Agencies and Ecologies

Nardi and O'Day Information Ecologies
Overall, I have truly enjoyed reading this book. I find the authors’ tone and writing style to be not only informative and fresh, but also inviting and optimistic, full of encouragement for establishing a means to control the path of technological development in our future. I agree completely that people have the ability to form critical, reflective thoughts about their own information ecologies and therefore play an active role in shaping and maintaining a healthy system of information exchange. This can happen regardless of the level of education or affluence of the individual members; everyone has thoughts and opinions they just chose not to share them sometimes. The goal is now to create awareness and provide a way for people to interact with technology even when they feel like they are too small or insignificant to have an effect.

I find Langdon Winner and Jacques Ellul’s perspective that technology is its own autonomous force pessimistic and suggestive of a world where computers and technological innovations will weed out human contribution. To believe technology needs to be invented because it is inevitable, like J. Robert Oppenheimer says of the atom bomb that “when I saw how to do it, it was clear to me that one had to at least make the thing” (p. 37) is creatively open-minded yet irresponsible in the greater scope since one is not considering the impact said innovations will have on all of our global society. Does this make anyone else think of the doomsday war between man and machine of the Terminator movies? Not to suggest that technology will develop its own living force someday, but the consequences could be debilitating instead of beneficial if technology is allowed to run rampant for the sake of technology and not actively harnessed and directed by its users.

Nardi and O’Day contest this “rhetoric of inevitability” (p. 17) with multiple examples. I found one of the most interesting case studies from this book to be the Pueblo virtual world of the Longview Elementary School (Phoenix, AZ), the Xerox Parc research group (Palo Alto, CA), and the senior community of ‘grays’ (p. 127, also Phoenix area) as they are called. Not only was the experience technologically enriching for the children, teachers, and seniors, but also it was building a strong sense of community between all the users. Shy children found a comfortable medium for expressing themselves in both topics related to class or in terms of building social skills while seniors felt the human connection that they sometimes lack as they age. I know this to be true of my own grandparents, and I try to make connecting with them a regular part of my schedule. Though it was inconclusive at the time, I would not be surprised to see the literacy rate improve for these children as they learn to type, write, read, and organize their thoughts will actively engaged in the topic aspect of this technology. Nardi and O’Day point to the children’s interest in creating this virtual world as a central component of why the program was succeeding, like the students’ interest in photography motivating them in the digital photography course study of chapter ten; almost as a side effect, they learned to use new technology since the focus of the course was not centered on the technology itself, which can be a turn-off for some less tech savvy students. These fresh ideas supported by the findings of the authors’ research leave me with a feeling of empowerment that I can in fact influence the future in terms of integrating technology efficiently into my life, and I strive to make sure that is the outcome.

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Week 2: Introduction

Christine Pawley "Libraries"
This article gives a good overview of the recent history of the modern library, which now includes specializations such as the National, Public, Academic, School, and Special library. It also provides a history of the changes to the values and ethics within the field of librarianship. It was most surprising to me that such significant alterations have really only come to pass quite recently. For example, I have grown up in an era when public libraries have been strongholds against censorship and invasion of personal privacy by protecting library records, and yet the public opinion has only been supportive of this stance since the extreme censorship agenda of the Nazis during the 1920s/30s. Or, more locally, I have assumed public libraries to be a staple in almost every American town or community, but the widespread growth of public libraries as sustainable institutions only began making progress with the philanthropic backing of Andrew Carnegie during the early twentieth century. With the accelerated rate of change I'm used to growing up in the wake of the information explosion, I was glad to be able to see the positive changes of the last century still affecting my life today.

Tefko Saracevic “Information Science”
I found this article to be very helpful in defining the fields of library and information science more clearly, though there seems to be some professional indecision about any rigid boundaries. In fact, Saracevic claims that the interdisciplinary nature of information science remains at the very heart of the field’s development, especially over the last century when information has swamped our existence in unprecedented amounts and formats. Technological innovations in related disciplines like computer science intimately mold the whole scope of our modern information society, which correspondingly affects all related information domains. Staple ideas and approaches to information management will change accordingly through further research into technology and the continued education of information users, but these two components mark a significant rift in theories on information retrieval. Saracevic points out a systems-centered method represented by the Gerard Salton model of education in contrast to the human-centered approach of Jesse H. Shera’s model. It seems to me that one’s own professional bias lends a lot to which angle seems more logical, as Salton was a computer scientist and Shera a library school dean, and yet this split would actively detract from successfully developing and integrating the best tools for the betterment of everyone due to a lack of cooperation between very similarly interested parties. I would like to see technology become user-friendlier by the day, not only to relieve the frustration of learning and managing new systems, but also to grant access to a wider range of people who would benefit from the resources currently available. In an ocean of information threatening to drown out those who cannot keep afloat with new developments, it is necessary to manipulate the technology to produce the most benefits for its human information users.

D.D. Rusch-Feja “Libraries: Digital, electronic, and hybrid”
One of the cautions the author presents in this article is that “external services and virtual information centers or portals are fulfilling various information demands, though still without adequate quality control and validity checks” (p.8811). As someone who has had the good fortune of being able to attend a higher institution of learning, I have become a skeptic when it comes to evaluating new information or ideas, and I try to always question the source’s credibility or at least origin. Many people accept what they hear at face value with little questioning or concern about the legitimacy or truth behind it, and I think that behavior combined with the vast amount of free information available from the Internet alone has serious potential for disaster. Is it socially irresponsible to allow anyone to post anything without any system of said ‘quality control or validity checks’ when the information could, and does, end up being seen by children or other impressionable, uncritical minds? Though I am not a supporter of unilateral censorship, I think there must be some way to devise a system where materials like self-produced online videos or roaming Internet rumors cannot be misinterpreted for fact. Where does one draw a line between the freedom of speech, the freedom of intellectual thought, and the impressionability of the masses?

Wayne A. Wiegand “Tunnel Vision and Blind Spots…”
In one of the initial paragraphs Wiegand states that “without a deeper understanding of the American library’s past we cannot adequately assess its present and are thus unable to plan its future prudently” (p. 2) referring to the lack of research done on the strengths and weaknesses of the interactions between libraries and their users. I think this is especially true in considering the progression from a traditional library to a digital library that integrates and optimizes the best technological tools available, which often comes with a hefty price tag. I can’t believe there is not more research currently underway; it seems foolhardy at best to allocate resources into a field and then to overlook analyzing the effects of those resources, especially since funding availability and budget constraints are such major concerns. I cannot imagine a private company, for example, investing in a new software program or technology and then not following up on the effects of its implementation and in particular, the overall benefits to the company. On the contrary, the fallout would be scrutinized to be sure the investment was not wasted or made in poor judgment, providing valuable statistics for any future decisions. In a field as far-reaching as Information Science, where the effects of professional labors can be seen infusing into a wide range of communities, there needs to be methods of evaluating progress by comparison to previous years with room for any necessary adjustments to ensure a sustainable quality of services. Awareness is a major part of recognizing a problem, and I think Wiegand does a service to all information users by bringing this analytical void to our attention.