Between the Iron Thighs: Info Demands on Librarians Today

A couple of articles in SLA's Information Outlook got me thinking about the hurdles and challenges librarians are facing, due to the changes in how people are accessing and processing information. On one side, we have destabilizing shifts in the supply and presentation of content -- and on the other side, urgent demands from users who are producing and consuming at a dizzying pace. No wonder working at the reference desk can sometimes feel like being squeezed in a giant vice...

On the supply side, several things are happening at once: information is being made available for cheaper, quicker, and in more mediums than ever. As Larry Prusak explained in an interview, the business world has seen a rapid plummeting in "information transaction costs" -- this trend holds true for all users, from the business exec who Googles stock reports to the student who Wikipedias the Battle of the Bulge. This shakes up the traditional role of the librarian as 'information provider,' as users increasingly go out and forage for the data they need on their own.

Never mind multiple studies showing that most users are dramatically lacking in information skills -- but competency theory means that they are blissfully unaware of their own ineptitude, putting librarians in a double-bind. Surrounded by user-friendly (i.e. idiot-proof) search engines, users don't see the necessity of librarians' expertise (and when their searches fail, they can always just blame the interface -- or worse, assume that there's no information out there).

Meanwhile, librarians are scrambling behind the scenes to manage all these new forms of muitimedia and digital data, even as society shifts to ever more image-and-video focused platforms for communications.

And, of course, no one is willing to wait. A recent study by CIBER confirms the obvious: the shorter a piece of text, the more likely it will be read. For online browsing, the average e-article snags maybe 4 minutes of a user's attention, with most students skimming abstracts and hopskotching article titles in the search for that perfect reference.*

So the librarian gets trapped with a demanding, ill-informed user who wants their perfect answer now and doesn't necessarily see the librarian as much more qualified than they are to get it (after all, Google is so easy!). And then we fall into the Teacherly mode, trying to show them how to look for information better -- except that patrons don't want a lecture, they want results. Hence the dispiriting OCLC 2006 survey finding that user satisfaction actually decreases when librarians try to help.

Ouch.

What are the solutions? Well, in an academic setting, I don't see a lot of ways to avoid donning the Instructor Hat; students need to learn how to search in sophisticated, informed ways. Some encouragement comes from finding that the more educated students are about search techniques, the more willing they become to learn more (once they actually start seeing results).

However, for librarians overall as 'information providers,' I agree that the profession needs to evolve dramatically. We can no longer rely on the base of presenting data to users -- there are search engines and computer algorithms for that, and if they aren't good enough to replace humans yet, they will be. Instead, we have to provide value at higher levels; providing context, social connections, creative and engaging ways to synthesize information into knowledge. We have to make the information at our disposal useful to our patrons, tailored to their plans and needs and desires.

Librarianship has always been about service; we're just shifting our services to different areas and platforms. Hopefully, then we'll all be able to breathe a little easier.

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*More fun facts about Reading Habits/Death of Print?' later, maybe -- studies have shown we tend to skim online and actually read in print (so you have students accessing these online databases and then printing out the articles to absorb the material).