Our Users

1. Our Users LIS510

2. What Libraries Want • To provide for the information needs of a clientele • To build useful collections and provide effective services • To be used

3. What Library Users Want • To find what they want • To find as much or as little as they need • To experience as little pain as possible • To not have their time wasted • To have the option to control their experience and make informed decisions • To be effectively advised

4. Basic User Truths • Only librarians like to search, everyone else likes to find • A cite in the hand is worth 10 in the database • Good enough is just that • Pain avoidance is a powerful motivator

5. Reference • Is another of those “tricky” library words • “The act of referring or consulting” • Service • “Something that refers a reader or consulter to another source of information” • Resources

6. Reference Service: History • Collection development: thousands of years • Collection organization: 400 years • Reference: 100+ years

7. Reference Service: History • 1858: First library convention. No awareness of patrons • 1876: Federal government survey on public libraries; recognized a subject called “help to patrons” but generally it was considered as disturbing librarians from important work • 1876: ALA conference in Philly: Samuel Green wrote paper called The Desirableness of Establishing Personal Intercourse and Relations Between Librarians and Readers in Popular Libraries • Named following functions: • Instruct reader in ways of the library • Assist readers in solving their inquiries • Aid the reader in selection of works • Promote the library within the community

8. Reference Service: History • 1886: 53 of 108 public libraries said they provided “personal service” • 1886: First official reference librarian at Columbia • 1891: Library Journal uses “reference” as an index term • 1910: First reference textbook

9. Areas of change in the library • Libraries are getting bigger • There is greater interdependence between libraries • Libraries are growing more specialized • Technology is increasing • User populations are growing more diverse

10. Emerging formats in the library • Graphic novels • Audio books • Electronic books

11. Reexamining Green’s reference functions in today’s world • Instruct reader in ways of the library  Bibliographic instruction • Assist readers in solving their inquiries  Reader advisory • Aid the reader in selection of works  Pathfinder and evaluation • Promote the library within the community Outreach

12. Three breeds of reference librarians • Pointers: public libraries • Fetchers: special libraries • Teachers: school and academic libraries

13. Circulation Desk To check in/out library materials Reference Staff May be paraprofessional staff Often a professional librarian with a graduate degree in Library/Information Science Reference Desk To answer informational questions Circulation Staff May be volunteers from the community May by student employees May be paraprofessional staff Reference: Who provides it?

14. Timing Matters • Reference desk hours < Library building hours • Individual librarian’s hours < Reference desk hours

15. Reference librarians are there to answer questions! • Versus common view: • “I only ask a librarian for help when I cannot find it myself ... when I’m stuck on a certain subject or a certain aspect of my subject, then I go and ask her … If I know where it is, why should I bother her? I mean she’s here only if I absolutely, necessarily need her.” • Marie Radford, The Reference Encounter (1999), pg. 114.

16. Reference Interview • Librarians are trained to ask certain questions • What kind of information is needed? • With the topic of flying saucers, do you need a definition, a history, a news story, confirmation that they exist?

17. Reference Interview • How much information is needed? • And how much information do you already have? • How is the information going to be used? • A paper vs. an oral presentation • To what degree is “popular” or “technical” information needed? • Do you need general information, or specific information? • How long should the information be?

18. Reference Interview • Any specific sources you must use/not use? • How much time can you spend in getting and using information? • When is the information needed? • Are you asking for information for yourself, or for someone else? • Parents & children • Your grandparents

19. Reference Interview • Librarians also trained to AVOID certain questions • Why do you need the information?

20. Virtual reference service • One of hottest topics in librarianship in years • Software packages for this service, e.g. OCLC’s QuestionPoint • Issues: • Use of licensed databases • Service sharing • Transcripts vs patron privacy • Not as many patrons use as hoped

21. Our Users • 24 X 7 expectations: Any time any place • Self-help • Banking; Gas stations; Airline kiosks; Skiosks; Supermarket checkout; Library circulation • Information creators • Wikis and blogs • Choice • Cereals, automobiles, computers, video games, search engines • Media savvy

22. Information Sources: More Options • Free websites • Individual subscriptions to digital libraries • HighBeam Research (http://www.highbeam.com/Library/index.asp) • Questia (http://www.questia.com) • Google • Google Scholar • Digitization project

23. Technology: The Web • “The Web has become the ‘new normal’ in the American way of life; those who don’t go online constitute an ever-shrinking minority.”[Rainie and Horrigan. How the Internet. Pew, 2005] • Internet users are satisfied with search engines, yet they are naïve about how the search engines work.[Fallows. Search Engines. Pew, 2005] • 8 million American adults have created blogs and over 25% of Internet users read blogs. [Rainie. State of Blogging. PEW, 2005]

24. Colin Powell “’I live on the Internet,’ General Powell said. He cited his favorite site: www.refdesk.com. . . . The reference site is so comprehensive, General Powell said, he has thrown out all his encyclopedias and dictionaries.” --New York Times, 1/26/01

25. Technology: The Cell Phone • 180,464,003 Current US Wireless Subscribers [Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) www.ctia.org Accessed April 2, 2005] • New uses of cell phones: • Telephone directories • New pricing structure • Multi-purpose devices (e.g., BlackBerry) • Phones • Cameras • Text messages • E-mail • Web surfing

26. Technology: Instant Messaging • R U IMing 2? • No longer just for “kids” (Breeding, 2003) • "With more than 28 million business users sending nearly 1 billion messages each day, EIM is clearly reaching more mainstream users.” P. Mahowald, IDC research manager, Collaborative Computing[http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=31809 accessed March 20, 2005]

27. Technology: Wireless • Wireless access in coffee shops, fast food restaurants, hotels and airports. • What about libraries? • Marshall Breedings’s Directory of Lib-Web-Cats • Includes wireless information at http://www.librarytechnology.org/libwebcats/ <accessed March 19,2005> • Wireless Librarians • Blog to advance use of wireless in libraries at http://wirelesslibraries.blogspot.com/<accessed April 5,2005>

28. Future of Reference • Future of reference services in libraries is not certain or guaranteed. • Point-of-need library reference service will thrive. • Physical reference desk will disappear. • More time spent on digital reference • Harder to define primary clientele • Longer hours of service {24/7 model} • Streaming media services to remote users

29. Possible Menu of Future Reference Services • Intermediated assistance • Roving librarians with PDAs or walkie talkies • Café reference service • E-mail and text messaging • Chat with simplified interface • VoIP chat • Wireless reference: email, text message, chat, searching using cell phone or other device • Invisible Librarian • Self-help websites • Guide in selecting and using authoritative information sources • Incorporate virtual training into websites

30. Traditional View of Reference • Librarian and Library are the centers of the universe • Users come to the desk in the library for service • Desk hours reflect library needs • Users come to the library for instruction

31. A New View of Reference • Users are the center of the universe • Services revolve around users • Reference services are available digitally and physically • Reference services are synchronous and asynchronous • Reference service hours meet users’ needs

32. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: Report Findings • Respondents use search engines to begin an information search (84 percent). One percent begin an information search on a library Web site. • Quality and quantity of information are top determinants of a satisfactory information search. Search engines are rated higher than librarians.

33. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: Report Findings • The criterion selected by most information consumers to evaluate electronic resources is that the information is worthwhile. Free is a close second. Speed has less impact. • Respondents do not trust purchased information more than free information. The verbatim comments suggest a high expectation of free information. • Library users like to self-serve. Most respondents do not seek assistance when using library resources.

34. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: Report Findings • Library card holders use information resources more than non-card holders, and they are more favorably disposed to libraries than non-card holders. • Age matters sometimes. Sometimes it doesn’t. Responses are sometimes consistent across U.S. age groups, suggesting age-independent preferences and practices. Familiarity with e-mail is an example. In other areas, responses vary considerably by the age of the respondents. For example, young U.S. respondents are much less likely than those over 65 to agree librarians add value to the information search process.

35. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: Report Findings • The survey results are generally consistent across the geographic regions surveyed. Responses from the United Kingdom showed the largest range of variations from other regions surveyed. • Information consumers use the library. They use the library less and read less since they began using the Internet. The majority of respondents anticipate their usage of libraries will be flat in the future.

36. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: Report Findings • Borrowing print books is the library service used most. • “Books” is the library brand. There is no runner-up. • Most information consumers are not aware of, nor do they use, most libraries’ electronic information resources. • College students have the highest rate of library use and broadest use of library resources, both physical and electronic.

37. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: Report Findings • Only 10 percent of college students indicated that their library’s collection fulfilled their information needs after accessing the library Web site from a search engine. • The majority of information consumers are aware of many library community services and of the role the library plays in the larger community. Most respondents agree the library is a place to learn.

38. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: Report Findings • Comments from respondents provide clear directions for physical libraries: be clean, bright, comfortable, warm and well-lit; be staffed by friendly people; have hours that fit their lifestyles; and advertise services. Find ways to get material to people, rather than making them come to the library. • Information consumers like to self-serve. They use personal knowledge and common sense to judge if electronic information is trustworthy. They cross-reference other sites to validate their findings.

39. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: Report Findings • Ninety percent of respondents are satisfied with their most recent search for information using a search engine. Satisfaction with the overall search experience has a strong correlation to the quality and quantity of information returned in the search process. • People trust what they find using search engines. They also trust information from libraries. They trust them about the same. • Search engines fit the information consumer’s lifestyle better than physical or online libraries. The majority of U.S. respondents, age 14 to 64, see search engines as a perfect fit.

40. Social Landscape • Self-sufficiency • Banking, shopping, entertainment, research, travel, job-seeking, chatting— pick a category and one theme will ring clear—self-service. People of all age groups are spending more time online doing things for themselves. • Satisfaction • Surveys confirm that information consumers are pleased with the results of their online activities. • Seamlessness • The traditional separation of academic, leisure and work time is fusing into a seamless world aided by nomadic computing devices that support multiple activities.

41. Economic Landscape • Worldwide education and library spending • Library funds—sources and uses

42. Technology Landscape • Bringing structure to unstructured data • Distributed, component based so • A move to open-source software • Security, authentication and Digital Rights Management (DRM) • Hype or Hope

43. Research and Learning Landscape • Proliferation of e-learning • Lifelong learning in the community • The changing patterns of research and learning in higher education

44. Library Landscape: Social Trends • Staffing • In not so many years, a huge amount of collective experience and knowledge will be gone from cataloging departments and reference desks as the Baby Boom library staff retire. • Libraries should reallocate positions to newer kinds of jobs: digital scholarship and open-source projects, for example. • Collectively, we feel the need to do everything ourselves. We need to get over this.

45. Library Landscape: Social Trends • New roles • Among the many new roles that libraries are assuming is the role of library as community center. Not just warehouses of content, they are social assembly places, participating in their larger communities. It makes a great deal of sense for libraries to look for new, broader service opportunities within their communities. • Mass-market materials are increasingly avoiding traditional distribution channels such as the library. • Access is a form of sustainability. Content that can be accessed is valued and is more likely to be sustained by the community.

46. Library Landscape: Social Trends • Accommodating users • It is still the case that most library users must go virtually or physically to the library. Library content and services are rarely pushed to the user. • We need to stop looking at things from a library point-of-view and focus on the user’s view. • Librarians cannot change user behavior and so need to meet the user.

47. Library Landscape: Social Trends • Traditional versus nontraditional content • Social, economic, technological and learning issues make content management for libraries and allied organizations enormously challenging. But, all artifacts of cultures must be curated, preserved and made accessible. • Being collection-centric is old-fashioned; content is no longer king—context is. • Creation of copy cataloging is not a sustainable model—there is less and less need for human-generated cataloging and less ability to pay for it.

48. Library Landscape: Social Trends • Preservation and persistence • Issues related to persistence and preservation are a subset of the issues of content management and are very difficult. • Digital preservation has to be a national issue—it will never work on an institution-by-institution basis. • There is no more substance behind “digital preservation” than there was behind “print preservation.” There’s no money for any type of preservation.

49. Library Landscape: Social Trends • Funding and accountability • Funding to libraries, museums, historical societies and other institutions reliant on the public purse may continue to decline in the short term. Longer term, these agencies may have to compete for a share of public funding, potentially resulting in new forms of collaboration. • Technology issues are not difficult. Funding is. • The public won’t support endeavors they can’t see.

50. Library Landscape: Social Trends • Collaboration • The really significant advances and the most meaningful and lasting solutions in the Library Landscape have been cooperative ones. • We need way more collaboration among museums, libraries and historical societies to present coherent collections. • Local history collections are not all that unique. The material is elsewhere—local historical society, university library, state library— and so inventories must be done before expensive digitization projects are done