Comments on: Complexity Gives Us Job Security

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:31:00 +0000

WorldCat Local certainly goes a long way in accomplishing the goals of simplicity in service and coverage. It’s not perfect, but our first year with it has transformed bibliographic instruction. No longer do we have to run the gamut of catalogs and databases, especially for underclassmen. We’re also totally redesigning our website, stripping out everything that is not essential for the users. It also uses their terminology: goodbye, “interlibrary loan,’ hello “borrow from another library.”

By: James Mabe

James Mabe — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:02:43 +0000

I agree with the above, and would add that it’s not in the interest of the companies providing these products and services to improve them. Particularly in public libraries, the costs of ILS implementation are always so high (especially when coming out of a set operating budget) and the level of competition remains so low that vendors know they can provide middling to poor products without having to worry about losing customers to competitors. Furthermore, not only are information professionals frequently unaware of the state of the art (as the above comment rightfully states), but often it is true that front-line staff and IT departments fail to cooperate to create the best scenario for information seekers. More than merely a matter of emotional investment in the complex interface, it is also true that a significant financial investment has taken place, and public libraries cannot help but consider the costs they have already accrued to implement (however poorly or incompletely) their ILS and online resources. Additionally, libraries do not by coincidence operate much the same way they have for the last half-century; the emotional connection to The Way We Do Things runs far wider than merely memorizing keyboard commands.

By: Andromeda

Andromeda — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:43:44 +0000

Personally? I think a lot of it’s ignorance.

I was taking a class on ILSes last term. And it seemed like at least once a week I’d mention something to my husband, a software engineer (who coincidentally works for one of those companies which makes things easy to search, though he didn’t at the time), and he’d say something like…”Wait. Your software doesn’t do that? Why? It’s, like, two days of a sophomore CS major’s time!” And I’d say…really? that easy?

I think most librarians, and patrons, are unaware of how hard or easy it is to implement a lot of features. When we don’t know they’re easy — when we don’t know they’re not merely last year’s but last decade’s technology — we don’t push vendors to implement them. If we don’t demand them, who’s going to supply them?

I mean, I also think you’re right that there’s a (perceived) value to (some) librarians in being gatekeepers (all the parentheses are because users are simply flocking to easier things while the gatekeepers handwring about how, well, at least their resources are better). And I think people (not just librarians) who have mastered a complex interface have an emotional investment in it which makes change hard. But mostly I think librarians don’t demand good interfaces because we don’t know much about them, and we don’t know what the technology can offer us, and, well, we’re getting what we demand.