Not sure why I am advertising this as I am not even sure anybody reads this blog. However, if you do read this and are a “blogging librarian”, get on over to Information Wants to Be Free and take Meredith’s blogging survey.
Thanks for the work Meredith!
The Jul/Aug issue of Online has come out and Bill Badke’s second piece for the magazine, Blind Co-Browsing, Teachable Moments, and the Power of Gaming is included. The first part of the article discusses what seems to be our dream interaction with patrons/students. Yes we do have them occasionally. You know…the patron who is inquisitive not just about their research question, but also about the process of finding “things”. The patron who will recognize when shown, that “searching” can be more nuanced and somewhat perfected. Probably a librarian just waiting to get out. 
Now as Bill points out, those are usually the exceptions to the rule. Most of the time we see the “point of need” person, who has no or very little interest in understanding the tools and concepts.
People come to you asking for help, but what they want is a bare-bones solution that will meet minimal requirements.
How do we work or motivate this type of patron? Bill puts the gamer theory to work, using “fun” as what could be a powerful motivator.
Gamers have ways of strategizing that are very similar to the best use of search skills for databases. True, with the average database, nothing blows up, and the graphics are decidedly ho-hum, but I’ve been wondering if the teaching of some sort of “information quest” might not be a new path to teachable moments.
I would also say and I think Bill is trying to “simplify” things for our patrons, making things “recognizable.” I know I sometimes have students who do not know what an “index” is or what a “journal” is. Yep, had that last one last last week. I don’t think we need to find new terms for everything, but it does help to de-jargonize library speak for our patrons.
I don’t think there is much if anything that I disagree with Bill here, but I would suggest that we need to also get them to think about and deconstruct their research questions before they even get into the “game”. Maybe think of it as the “instructions?” Then again, maybe not, as they always tend to throw those away.
You’re Mother Night!
by Kurt Vonnegut
Nobody knows what to believe about you, and you know least of all. You spent most of your time convinced that the ends justify the means, but your means were, well, downright mean! And the end is nigh. Meanwhile all you want is to travel back in time, if not to change, then to just delight in the way it used to be. You are who you pretend to be. Oh yes, you’re the great pretender.
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Now..I love the book( and the movie), but I take issue with the ends justifying the means thing and this rather simple summation of the book. LOL But hey, Vonnegut?! Excellent!
I still have a couple to do, but yesterday ended the 3 week teaching binge of 11 classes. That includes several introduction classes and some capstone classes. With the capstone classes I get to work quite extensively with the students who are in the process of writing their capstone/thesis. A couple things of note, our catalog, CLICnet now allows the user to social bookmark records. When I show this and ask how many people actually use social booking sites, such as digg and del.icio.us, hardly anybody raised their hand. As a matter of fact, out of about 150 students only two raised their hand. Now, what’s up with that? Now remember, I work with graduate students, who tend to be older and might not have heard or have a need for that type of tool, but I was expecting to have a few more…as again, I work with our Grad Ed folks…you know…teachers. Another thought on this is “When might people “age” out of web 2.0 tools?” Now, as a librarian, I will always have a need for some of this technology as sometimes our services require it. What is the life expectancy of a facebook/myspace account? After college, and more specifically for undergraduates, do they actually keep up with these accounts? Just curious.
On another note, with those capstone students, I am integrating worldcat.org into the discussion: showing them how to create lists, limit to books, and making sure they use the library’s zip code in the Location Information. Also found out this week that it is possible to obtain the full text of some dissertations through worldcat. Unfortunately, for the patron, this can be somewhat confusing and they may be best served by just having our ILL people tell them that the item is there. Worldcat has the find full text link, which can be confusing. What students really need to do, is actually click on the library location, which will either take them directly to the item information or to their catalog. And obviously, it depends on which institution. This can be quite confusing for the general user, as they wonder why some things are available and some are not. And chances are they will not think about the reasons behind that. They will think “Why aren’t all dissertations free online?”
The Nexus 6
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