Sarah Nolan

While I read last week’s readings, I did not actually post anything; it was quite the week.  But actually in retrospect, I think that these last two weeks have quite a lot of linking themes, so I don’t mind doing them together.

Like all of my classmates, I learned a new word after reading Taylor’s (1991) article– IUE (Information Use Environment).  While the term itself was new to me, the concept behind it was not. An IUE is a user directed approach that pays attention to how particular set of people, who behave differently will have different information needs. Their approach to knowledge and use of information also are unique.  As an information professional, it is important to know your users and their needs.  What I feel is important to note about an IUE is that it is more than what information is used; the most important questions to ask are why and how they use the information.  This implies an investigation of sorts.  As times have changed, the necessity for librarians to investigate further into the IUEs of their community has expanded.  In the case study of Hartford, and the Neighborhood Team model (2006), library staff fully participate in the various community meetings, and are in close proximity to the problem solving.  By bringing professional practice into the community, librarians are reshaping the information practice within the framework of the IUEs of the community.  Like many things that need preparation, sometimes library work must be done before the users ever set foot in a library.

While Taylor (1991) grouped users into four large types of people, I would disagree that IUEs should be so defined.  As times have changed since 1991, people are not as homogenous as they once were.  With more access to diverse information, people are changing the way that they view problems and solutions, both of which reveal a group’s IUE.  In my opinion, it is the concern of the information professional to understand their communities needs and motivations for seeking information.  In a continuation of this thought, the slide show by Howard (2011) reminded me of the goals I want to take with me in my professional practice.  I liked how in order to maintain a user-centric outlook an information professional must empathise, maintain curiosity, observe, reflect and experiment.  All of these actions are centered around ensuring a better experience for the user.  The slide about how to manage service in terms of time also seemed very useful.  In each of the time scenarios, what would best benefit the user was mentioned.  Like the article about PIM (Personal Information management), the purpose of the librarian is to add to the knowledge base of users.  This can be seen as an extension of the educator roles that information professionals play.

Howard & Davis (2011) also explore the idea of moving beyond EBP (evidence based practice) when trying to solve problems.  The differentiate between EBP and design thinking in that design thinking focuses on solving problems where there is little or no precedence.  They also maintain that while EBP forms a good groundwork, it does not work for more complex problem, and we must diversify and design new solutions.  To be honest, like Kevin said in class before- I thought that this was something that librarians already have been doing.  Of course EBP would not work for every situation.  In those times, you would use EBP to form a basis for what you try to find a solution, designing your solution based on the context.  I did appreciate the idea of keeping solutions human centred while sometimes it might become easy to make an EBP solution more literary based.  Keeping solutions human centred allows for more innovation and creativity, qualities that work in a user centred world.  The Hybrid model forces more why questions to be asked, inviting more knowledge of the IUE, which in turn could only help create a solution.

While there is a lot of talk about user centred approaches and designs, I agree with the Bowler et al (2011) article that it is time to review and not defend the idea.  It has become listed as a core competency in many LIS schools as well as organizations.  I found the article interesting in how they were attempting to begin this task.  Reviewing user centered service models  will take a while before action and implementation can take place.

One of the most interesting parts of the article was about how users have trouble finding the “right terms”.  This is especially true in the Finding Aids of Archives and Heritage centres.  While a finding aid is a created tool that “facilitates discovery of information within a collection of records” (Bowler et al, 2011) it often is not user-friendly.  Archivists must come up with and understand their own language of subject headings and indexes.  From personal experience with indexing the heritage collection at my local library, I can attest for how much jargon is used to describe the headings.  Even within the subject headings, what actually goes into them is somewhat arbitrary, depending on the indexer.  Our collection has had several different indexes over the years who have all used slightly different styles to index them.  After a point, no new subject headings were allowed, so if something didn’t fit quite right, you had to find somewhere extra general to put it.  I always felt that such items would probably never be found again.  Not only would it be difficult for the archivist, who spoke the heading language to find the material, but users wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance.  By adding SEE alsos to the index or SEE under general headings that users might look for, our system became slightly more user centric.  In order to create a truly user centric index however, much more work is needed.  As it is, even with the additional indicators or tags, a trained professional who speaks the language is needed for assistance.  It will be interesting to see if disintermediation (when users are searching their own information) will ever truly be possible, but it is an aspiration for the future.