Living in the information age means
having constant access to considerable
amounts of information. However,
access to information is not to be
equated with intellect and knowledge.
Quantity is not quality. To evaluate information
in a qualitative manner
requires competence. Librarians are a
professional category endowed with
this particular competence. Therefore,
many use the libraries to satisfy their
information needs and to receive guidance.
Nevertheless, while the need for
guidance through the information
jungle is greater than ever before, librarians
are receiving less and less reference
queries. How come? One answer
among many is that more believe that
all information these days, whatever it
may be, can be found on the internet.
In other words, the internet appears to
be satisfying people’s need for information
outside the library sphere, yet they
might still be in need of instruction.
This is where the virtual library can
perform a valuable task. By allowing
the user access to licensed databases
and recommending free but hard to
find electronic resources – the library
can unlock the hidden web. Consequently,
alternatives can be offered to
the unspecified, and the often so hard
to interpret, web contents, retrieved by
the search tool.
‘Ask the Library’ or as its Swedish heading
reads: ‘Fråga biblioteket’, is a Swedish
digital reference service. It accepts
all kinds of questions between heaven
and earth. A growing network of librarians
among the public libraries of
Åland and Sweden answer queries via
chat sites and e-mail. Ask the Library
can therefore be said to be the Swedish
public libraries’ joint information
counter in cyberspace.
During this coming autumn, Ask the
Library will initiate a collaborative project
with the Swedish university libraries’
reference service, ‘Librarian On
Call’, or its Swedish heading: ‘Jourhavande
bibliotekarie’. Its purpose is to
bridge services, and in the long run
create a national digital reference service.
One of Ask the Library’s main tasks is
to create accessibility and guidance.
Through this digital reference service
the library reaches out to those who by
their own accord fail to visit the actual
library and can offer instruction on
options that might not always be apparent
to the user.
Society’s educational structure has
changed. New pedagogic methods encourage
independent studies and problem-
based teaching. Demands are
thereby placed on the student’s ability
to search, evaluate in a critical manner,
to structure and utilise the information
in a creative way. To maintain knowledge
of new findings and current research
in working life requires a degree
of information literacy. Lifelong learning
implies that we are all to an extent
students throughout life. Research has
shown that about 50% of the public libraries’
visitors are there to pursue studies.
Ask the Library’s chat forum has
in excess of 80% queries that are related
to studies. This brings forth a
pedagogic challenge for the librarian,
but also the prospect of marketing the
library and in the process encourage
users to further information searches
or a visit to the library. Ask the Library
visualises the library’s virtual reference
counter and students discover that the
library can actually improve upon the
results displayed by Google.
Making the library’s electronic resources
visible and offering guidance in
how to execute searches is a major
aspect in reducing the information
chasm apparent in society today. To offer
everyone the same possibilities to
obtain knowledge and learning, and
thereby diminish ‘the second digital
chasm’, is a democratic issue. The significance
of a library as a place of learning,
both on its physical premise and at
a distance is increasing, and with that
also the library’s pedagogic role.
Two of the factors which have made a
positive contribution to information
retrieval and learning, are interest and
motivation. This is where the library’s
user instruction is likely to succeed if
the ‘pedagogic moment’ can be captured
as the student poses a question.
This is where Ask the Library and the
information counter has the pedagogic
advantage over the user-instructional
sessions taught to groups. The exchange
of the reference query is initiated by
the user and is known as the ‘moment
of truth’. This is where the user decides
whether the library is an institution of
competence where qualified assistance
can be attained, and if it was worth the
trouble using the information counter
or its digital counterpart.
Linda Ward Callaghani divides the reference
process into five sections:
- the patron’s expression of what information
is needed,
- the reference
interview to clarify the request,
- the librarian’s interpretation of the patron’s
information needs,
- the materials
available in the library’s collection, and
- the librarian’s ability to identify,
locate, and suggest various materials
either in the collection or from other
sources.” All sections are dependent
upon a functioning and efficient communication.
The user occupies the centrepoint.
A hitch in all this is that the student
views information retrieval as a quest
for the one and only answer, or even
worse, the completed essay. This could
involve a conflict between the user’s
desire and the librarian’s policy to offer
instructional guidance in order to increase
the user’s ability to retrieve information.
Information literacy is a blessed child
with many names (spanning ‘library
knowledge to information education’)
and there is no bridging definition of
the concept. Is it about the practical
attainment of search tools or is it about
creative solutions? There are a number
of factors affecting the search process,
and basically there are different approaches
to knowledge and these have
a bearing on how we relate to information.
If information is viewed as a
search for meaning and intellect, as opposed
to an object or as a sealed and
delivered parcel of knowledge, one
soon realises that information retrieval
is a complex and meaningful process.
Knowledge about the sources, search
paths, Boolean operators etc. are, of
course, important in becoming an independent
information retriever, but
one’s attitude towards information is of
equal importance. To retrieve information
in order to learn requires time and
reflection. This is an intellectual process,
not something merely requiring
the mechanical tapping of a keyboard.
Carol Kuhlthau (Seeking meaning)
speaks of man as a creature of learning
and writes about learning as “a process
of construction which is an active, confusing
complex process of making sense
of new experiences”. Mankind attempting
to grasp its world. One seeks
meaning. For everything new one
learns, one’s view of the world is disarranged.
The experience is staggering,
which in its initial phase is marked by
insecurity, doubt, frustration and fear
of the new. Kulthau treats these feelings
in a serious manner. To merely see to
the cognitive aspect of the information
process, to view it as an intellectual
process is not enough. Aside from ‘the
cognitive’ (thought) and ‘the physical’
(action), Kulthau emphasises ‘the affective’
(feelings) in the information
retrieval process.
Kulthau sees the theory of learning as
‘a process of construction’, which can
be used to better prepare the user for
the learning process taking place as
seen from without the information at
the library. She speaks of ‘the uncertainty
principle’ and positions the order
of the bibliographic paradigm to
that of the user’s sense of insecurity
and confusion. The problem is not
merely that the user’s concept formation
fails to adhere to the system, but
also that mankind’s information needs
are in a state of perpetual change as
long as the information retrieval process
and constructional process is
ongoing. The user’s information need
is not static; it is constantly being revised
and reformulated during the search
process. The librarian has to realise this
and adapt to the user’s perspective to
create an improved and more efficient
way of coaching.
The virtual reference services make visible
the myriad of winding search
paths. Using cobrowsing, the librarian
can visualise the way from a distance.
The user sees the same page on his
screen as the librarian. The advantage
of the digital reference service is that
the conversation is automatically saved,
easing future evaluations of the communicative
aspects, the answers supplied
and to comply with further information
when the need arises. Users can
also save the chat sessions, enabling return
visits to elaborate the original
query and for further assistance in the
learning process.
It stands to reason that the virtual
milieu can be made even easier to navigate
and understand. User-friendly manuals
can be provided to alleviate the
users’ search for information on their
own. But, improved systems and user
manuals and more intelligent search
engines do not make up for the need of
a librarian with pedagogic skills.
Google cannot judge whether a user is
knowledgeable about information retrieval
or merely an insecure beginner,
or at which level the instruction need
be.
The librarian’s competence is too little
noticed by far. Ask the Library makes
available the electronic resources and
the competence of the librarians. To
suggest that Ask the Library is a Google
with delay, is to assume the attitude
that information retrieval is a hunt for
ready-made answers. It is true –
Google is faster at finding 235,786 hits,
but Google does not offer a pedagogic
guidance and that virtual human
touch, which can be decisive for an
advantageous learning process.
Despite good intentions, one does not
always succeed. Lack of time is usual
given as the main reason as to why one
prefers to supply ready-made answers
rather than show the way to the information;
or that one actually supplies
what the user needs as an outbreak of
service-mindedness. Another contributing
factor can be insecurity regarding
one’s own sense of competence in information
retrieval.
Information literacy can be viewed as a
fully learned skill, or as contextually
bound and dependent upon the subject
being searched, in what situation and
to what purpose, and thereby never becoming
fully competent (or as unlikely
as becoming fully learned). The different
points of view on the subject have
bearing when related to library users. A
point of view on the
search process can be crucial as to how
knowledge is acquired and how it is
taught to users.
If one believes that everything must be
under complete control in order to call
oneself competent in information retrieval,
the librarian will invariably
choose tested and tried ways, delivering
ready-made answers. Consequently the
message emanating is that the search
process is a smooth one leading all the
way to where X marks the spot – no
wonder the user feels incompetent and
frustrated when he or she perform
their own searches and reach a deadend.
This is where they swallow their
pride and consult the expert!
If one dares to venture out with the
user on a slippery path, one not only
shows that one’s learning is still an
ongoing process (librarian and all!),
but also that an exaggerated respect for
databases is not healthy and that it is
not a failure if a query misfires or hit
results are fewer than expected. The information
retrieval process will however
benefit, as will the user and the librarian.
Lifelong learning must surely
also apply to librarians. Every user offers
the librarian yet another opportunity
to further the learning process!
Translated by Jonathan Pearman
Portrait by Åke Nygren
