giving in to lazy library patrons

And the Dewey Decimal System falls victim.  From the Denver Post:

By the end of the year, all six Rangeview branches and the district’s outreach office will dump the iconic Dewey and its numeric organizing system for one that relies on word categories such as “history” and “science.”

…

“For years, we’ve had focus groups and people consistently tell us, ‘I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how this library works,’ ” Sandlian Smith said. “So we decided to turn things upside down, and so far it seems to work well.”

I got a lot of problems with this.  First, Dewey already contains the categories they’re using, they’re just categorized numerically. If patrons can’t “figure out how this library works” then a librarian can give a brief introduction to the Dewey system.  It’s kinda what we do here.  Second of all, the movement toward the barnes and noble/borders categorization is ridiculous because patrons will always become lazier and eventually want librarians to hand deliver all their materials to them without them ever doing any work.

And really, has anyone consistently found exactly what they’re looking for on the first try? At least Dewey will ensure some organization in that similarly topical books will be found within just a slight deviation of the call number.  Part of the fun of browsing through the stacks is finding not just the object of desire, but those pleasant surprises that hadn’t presented themselves earlier.  Dewey ensures more precision of similar subject matter than in the store.

Also stated in the article:

Ken Neely, a 17-year patron of the Perl Mack branch, said he’s happy with the new system.

“I think it’s a good idea, especially if you are new to the library and don’t know the system. You don’t have to go to one of the librarians and ask for help,” Neely said. “That means they can spend more time helping people and doing research for you.”

Arrgh. We’re here to help people learn how to sharpen their information literacy skills, thereby becoming better researchers; we exist not to do their research for them.  Not only that, but how can we spend more time helping people if they are being conditioned not to ask for help in the first place?

This here, is the caveat of Web.2.0…the more people are tagging, friending and stuff-and-such like that, the lazier and more apathetic they become to learning how to use an OPAC, where they can find what they’re looking for just as quickly, if not more so, by reading a brief tutorial or getting a two minute instructional session on how to move through the stacks and where to place their eyes.

I’m all for keeping up with people’s technological or taxonomic proclivities, but laziness doesn’t fall under the Web 2.0 schema. Even LibraryThing’s Open Shelves Classification project doesn’t completely dismiss Dewey,  as its emphasis is to collaboratively reclassify rather than assign quasi-arbitrary taxonomies. Dewey shouldn’t become a martyr because patrons refuse to acknowledge their own numerophobia.

Here’s an idea, why not just paste subject heading labels, taken from Dewey, throughout the stacks? Or would that not be upside down enough?

the incidental opac

Librarians, I’ve come to understand, facilitate things.  Just like those late-night, seedy, ever anonymous entrepreneurs on streetcorners and in beer gardens possessing the ability to procure certain items on short notice for other unnamed yet interested parties, librarians too, embrace their responsibility of passing on their coveted contraband of information or that of retrieving such information.

And considering information retrieval, I’m incessantly perplexed with the utter obliviousness users have toward their library catalog.  It’s as if users take pride, relishing a certain sense of entitlement in their lack of curiosity toward navigating library resources.  Hence, the librarian is forced to find new ways to shuffle these students like cattle through the  slaughterhouse of information literacy or competency.

I’m not all that surprised that we now are induced to a vomit-inducing display of flashing lights and multimedia just to get students’ attention.  Should users actually spent five minutes exploring their OPAC (or listening to their librarians), they might actually learn how supremely practical subject headings can be.

Take for example, aquabrowser, a different kind of OPAC designed to display relationships based on searching terms.  My local public library uses it, along with the option of using a more traditional OPAC.  Aquabrowser uses a visual diagram of one’s search terms, highlighting possible misspellings, relationships, translations or thesaurus terms for one’s search.

I personally like it, however I feel it’s designed for the user who has no idea what they’re looking for, wherein I posit the hypothesis that those users are for the most part uncommon. Traditional OPACs will get the user to their items just as fast if not faster assuming they know what they’re looking for.

Users want to know if their materials are already checked out before they want to know what you have.  Therefore, the fact that you have an OPACs is incidental and it will be used primarily when one’s primary request has become unavailable.

Egads, you may be thinking…what is my point anyways?  Having OPACs that visually diagram your search, all supplemental and wondrous as they may be, may not necessarily be more useful than the standard OPACs, though less “dynamic” in the Web 2.0 sense.

Users, particularly college-level users mind you, aren’t familiar with their collections, and thus their OPACs.  I suppose that’s part of what makes us librarians freaks…we willingly, involuntarily befriend our collection regardless of whether a copy of Mall Cop has already been ordered and is on its way. Getting users to use the catalog for its own sake is herculean.

LibGuides vs. the OPAC

Getting students to use the library catalog is difficult.  With limited time for library instruction, they don’t get the motivation to learn what’s in the collection, and getting them to ask questions is damn near impossible. Typically, they only get really interested once finals time come around.  LibGuides looks to partially solve this problem since it can lessen the intimidation factor among students; rather than asking questions they have a place to begin and explore the research process.

So here is a dilemma.  As much as we want to teach students how to search the catalog on their own, and considering their propensity to use it only when they are forced to, are students better served by having a generous, steaming portion of titles listed for their subject? And does this mean less searches on the library OPAC, and ultimately diminished searching skills?

It seems like I’ve chosen that option for my guides.  Creating them, I have a much more in-depth knowledge of my library’s collection. For students, though, I do suppose it can take away from the searching process by displaying a thorough listing of what’s available.  Though we do have NetLibrary titles added and accessible via LibGuides, the other titles do require students, if they so choose to accept their mission,  to actually go and retrieve their books. For what it’s worth, students will learn about the LC call number system, the library floor plan, and and the frustration of finding their books already checked out.  I suppose that’s the price for not checking the catalog prior to entering the stacks.

It’s easy to make this issue into an either/or, polemic argument that students’ searching skills simply won’t develop when instantly given the title and location of relevant items. Perhaps true, but as this doesn’t mean we are abandoning in-class instructional sessions, there always exists the possibility of planting some seeds of library nerddom within those few conscientious geeks out there.  Not discounting the possibility of accomplishing both, it does echo a sentiment I’ve previously considered about whether LibGuides will make a library OPAC obsolete.

Depending on your type of library, LibGudes can be a primary or supplementary resource.  Whatever gets students motivated and prepared for research should be emphasized and promoted as much as possible.  Either way, students will be served; LibGuides will help students find particular resources for a variety of courses, and if they’re curious enough to search the OPAC for related items, then good on them for turning to another resource of ours (it’s not as if they can’t search the OPAC from the LibGuides interface).  But it’s important to mention that LibGuides expediates research, making it easier and more efficient for student research.  And it’s not as if we can’t create a guide for using the OPAC.