THE NEED FOR GUIDES, COACHES, AND TEACHERS IN THE SELF-SERVICE INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT

James H. Sweetland
North American Convenor

Consider the following:

Evidence that students prefer use of Web sources, and specifically Web sites found via search engines, as their only source of information. Or, they avoid print and CD-ROM indexes and catalogues, and also avoid material cited in Web sites unless the full text of that material is immediately available.

A growing body of research that most students use extremely simplistic search strategies in electronic sources, notably the typing of a string of the most obvious terms into a search engine. And some evidence that if the first strategy does not work, the student gives up without seeking any help.

Some research shows that students� choice of search engines and non-Web databases (such as library catalogues or indexing services) is based on a combination of fellow student recommendations and at least one prior success with that selection. This seems to apply even when the first search was very simple and popular, such as the dates and location of a battle, and the next search is complex and more technical, such as current drugs for treatment of a specific disease.

Complaints from some Usenet groups and Web sites that a growing number of queries to the sites are clearly from students who do not appear to be doing any work toward the completion of homework, other than querying the site. (This writer�s personal favourite so far this year was a question: "Tell me about the role of Elizabethan theatre in English literature. Why is it called �Elizabethan�? Please send me all the information right away, as the paper is due tomorrow").

Numerous reports that funding agencies, governing bodies and government agencies are suggesting that the Web will soon replace libraries entirely, and thus a tendency to be very unsympathetic to requests for funding increases and often hostile to requests for building expansion.

The problem here should be clear by now: while on the one hand the evidence suggests that students still need education and training in information seeking, they are not aware of this themselves, and are effectively avoiding any such training. And, at the same time, there is a possibility that the power structure is unaware of this fact, and feels that Web search engines in fact will soon replace formal libraries.

The solution? The librarian as educator, or, if you prefer, as teacher, or coach, or guide. Assuming at least a modicum of skill and education, librarians are capable of getting high quality information in an efficient manner a skill which many students appear to lack (unless sending an email to an academic listserver is efficient seeking of good information).

If students are going to use the principle of least effort to the extreme, and if we feel that society really needs a higher level of information literacy than the ability to type on a computer, then it may well be up to the library profession to take a very active stance. It may be up to us to get out from behind the reference desk, and to walk the halls (or the computer screens) and go out of our way to try to teach information literacy skills.

A long standing attraction of the librarian-as-teacher has always been that we do not assign grades. Thus, all things being equal, students are more likely to admit ignorance to librarians than to teachers. Unfortunately, students are becoming less aware of their ignorance.

I submit that this state of affairs is partly our fault. For too long, we have gone out of our way to claim information seeking, let alone information analysis, is easy. We have exerted ourselves to make ever more "user friendly systems" often in the process reducing the ability to do sophisticated searching. It is time for us, collectively and individually, to do everything we can to remind people that effort is not bad; learning curves are not bad; new skills are good things. If not, we may find not only that we are out of a job, but that society is being populated by a growing number of dolts.

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