Fast Vs. Thorough

It's a common scenario. Student approaches the reference desk and you think, fantastic, someone I can help learn how to learn. They ask you a question, and it's a complicated one. It's all about finding a journal, finding several articles - and it's not a simple topic, it's one that's going to require generating additional keywords, digging into descriptive subject vocabulary, and more than likely searching across databases.

About two minutes into your explanation of one of these tasks, which will inevitably help them in the end, you realize Student isn't listening. And in fact, here's a very large shocker - Student doesn't care.

Yikes.

What is one to do with Student, who doesn't care whether they have every resource out there or really whether it's even the best resource out there - they just want to have the assignment done?

In my experience it depends upon the scope of the assignment and how much they really need me. There are times, I'll admit that I try to get them a quick fix, while along the way adding as much education that might help them next time around as possible. In other cases, I realize that if they aren't interested in sitting with me, they'll have no hope of completing their assignment, in which case I tend to be more thorough, even if they act bored the entire time.

Is it wrong to cater to the fast?

I'm working on a guide for the freshman composition class, and playing around with titling it 'Find Four Things Fast'. Yes, it plays on that Google mentality, but I can't help but wonder how many of those people who show up at my reference desk have already spent four hours searching Google or the library databases unsuccessfully. By the time they come to me, yes, they want it fast! They've already been searching for four hours! Additionally, the library is fast. Or, rather, if you use it correctly, it's faster than Google for much information that's out there. "Find Four Things Fast" plays on that notion.

And truthfully? While I encourage people to spend days in the library if they want to, or to come and hang out with their friends if they want to, I don't want them to spend eight hours researching something that should have taken one! The guidelines on the worksheet will help them make that time brief, which makes for happy Students, and frankly, happy Librarians. Cause we like Happy People in the Library.

So far as I'm concerned, those are the only types that should be there!

Gen X or Net Gen?

Gen X or NetGen?

So, I'm going through the extreme pileup of things I'm supposed to have read. Technically? Gen X. At least according to this presentation. According to the presentation too, I'm supposed to be into video games, PC, email, CDs, and an individualist. If I'm NetGen (born after 1982, according to this presentation), I'm into the web, cell phones, IMs, MP3s, and Online communities.

Except that, I am into the web, cell phones, IMs, MP3s, and online communities. I've met GenX-ers who are very much GenX-ers, but there does seem to be a blurring there that's often focused on technology applications. Other highlights of the Net Generation include 8 out of 10 saying "it's cool to be smart", focused on grades and performance, identify with parents' values/feel close to parents, and a fascination for new technologies. Of the list of highlights there are only three that I don't feel relate to me; born in or after 1982, gravitating towards group activity (although I'd say that's my introverted side as much as it is any "generation", and respectful of social conventions and institutions. On the last it isn't as if I'm disrespectful of them, but I'm not respectful of them for convention or institutions sake. I tend to mock if they're absurd, and look for things that are practical and workable and if it isn't, then I'll mock.

Now I'll grant them, I'm more likely to email than IM - part of this is dependent on the person I'm communicating with however. If I'm on an IM system, I'm probably more likely to IM than email provided the other person is also on that IM system. I adore my cell phone and love having internet on it, and the capability to email/text etc. I was a late adopter of MP3s, but I don't think I could live without my shuffle now, and probably I'll replace it with a larger player at some point. And of course, what is LiveJournal but an online community? And before that it was message forums, mailing lists, originally, back in the day, the AOL message boards. While I'm not a huge fan of MySpace, it tends to be mostly about the hideous reliability of that site, rather than the idea of an online community of people.

I also look at the Student versus Faculty comfort zones lined out in this report and with the exception of "independent and individual" on the Faculty side, I identify more with the students comfort zones: multitasking, pictures, sounds, video - although I'm equally comfortable with text, the corresponding value on the faculty side - random access, engaging, and spontaneous. I can work with single or limited tasks, but my browser window testifies to my ability to have five things going at once, not to mention if I'm home, there's often television, music, or some other random distraction occurring. I can think linearly, logically, and sequentially, but I'm equally likely to hyperlink my thoughts. I'm rarely disciplined, much to my chagrin, and usually not deliberate...

Anyway, it's an interesting article, but I feel like I'm somewhere in between the two generation stereotypes. I'm not a complete Net Generationer, but particularly when it comes to technology, I'm feel as if I have as much in common with them as I do with my "own" GenX. I also somehow feel like it's a bit of a mistake to associate so many qualities of a generation with their technology application. I grant that it's important, and particularly so when you look at the differences between most NetGen's and Baby Boomers, for instance. But many of us on the tail end of the GenX group had computers in our homes, grew up with the infancy of the world wide web, and the first chat systems. We can't live without our MP3 players or our cell phones, and we multitask as much (and sometimes I think more than) the NetGen students that are starting to come in to classrooms. These reports give this idea that all NetGen students know everything about technology, but what I really find is that, particularly when talking about web interfaces, they don't. I have yet to find a student who admits to having a blog, using tags for entries, or using web services like Delicious or Flickr. Either they're not saying - plausible - or they aren't using. Either way, I'm not convinced the generation stereotype is remotely close to accurate.


This is a repost, but it fits here.

Web Design 2.0

Over the past month I've been spending a lot of time on our website looking at how it's arranged and working to put together a different, and hopefully more intuitive, design. It's been an interesting process. This was one of the first things that I did when I began my position here and I felt like I didn't do it very well. While it's true I had some stipulations with the design, I feel like mostly, it just didn't work. And there has been nothing so frustrating as watching people struggle with where to go and how to get there and knowing that ultimately, it was my responsibility that it wasn't good enough.

Enter design dos. I'm hoping this will be better because A) I've worked with the current site and I know what really doesn't work, and B) We have a design team who recognizes that the library site is a tool first and foremost, and therefore must be designed accordingly.

So the last few weeks I have spent organizing the current links into a different tree. I've learned the meaning and purpose of Website Wireframing and redesigning a website tree and so forth. I've also spent a significant amount of time actually looking at other library websites and seeing what others have done to hopefully pull some of these things into our new design. We met with the design team today and so I'm hoping that when we receive some wire frames back in a few weeks, that the ideas I've suggested will be incorporated into the design. Hopefully it'll all work well. If it doesn't, this will be very sad!