Mail List Discussion -- Impact of Information Technology on the Research Process

Karen M. Drabenstott
Associate Professor
School of Information
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092 USA
Voice: (734) 763-3581
Fax: (734) 764-2475
karen.drabenstott@umich.edu

New topic -- "Impact of Information Technology on the Research Process"

Unfortunately, our latest open topics discussion failed to yield many ideas. Perhaps our LISTSERV membership, like I, was overwhelmed by the momentous events in our world this week. We will again feature a new topics discussion in early November at which time we will need to gather new ideas and volunteers to ensure a new program for the new year.

Ned Fielden will host our new discussion on the "Impact of Information Technology on the Research Process." Ned inhabits the J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University. He has a BA from Hampshire College, an MA in history from Sonoma State University, and an MLIS from UC Berkeley. Responsibilities include service at a busy reference desk, the coordination of the Library's Database Training workshops, and overall management of the Library's Web site. His most recent course offering is "Internet and Electronic Resources." Interests include Human Computer Interaction (HCI), the art of writing (and how the computer as a tool affects this), online identity, and early Christian-era heretical sects.

Please join us for a discussion of "Impact of Information Technology on the Research Process."

Ned Fielden
San Francisco State University
Reference/Instruction
1600 Holloway Ave.
J. Paul Leonard Library
San Francisco, CA 94132-4030
Voice: (415) 338-1454
fielden@sfsu.edu

Having watched the waves of technology wash over the library world this decade, and witnessed the explosive growth of online resources, I have to wonder how all of this has changed the way people go about finding out information about things.

Not all that long ago it was possible for undergraduates in many subject areas to be virtually ignorant of many of the indexes and other finding tools that we utilise all the time in our profession. Often their models for information gathering and research were their professors, whose information-retrieval skills had often reached their zenith during the time of their own dissertations, even if that was twenty-some years previously. Part of this process was entirely healthy and wonderful, and for some disciplines, there were only a handful of main journals that covered the area. As apprentices, students were encouraged to find the journals in the library, peruse them, inhale them, digest them and base their studies on the ideas presented in them. Indexes were often viewed as superfluous, and the real work was seen to be conceptual in nature (although the best students always had a superior command of the journal literature.) That and the ability to find books in the library was all that constituted "information literacy" and it was considered adequate.

Is this still true? Can students study properly, graduate, become educated and cope as intellectual citizens with minimal information finding skills? Just how important is it for an educated person to be fully literate with Information Technology? (for the sake of discussion, let's ignore our own obsessive focus on this area.)

A related question circles around how much computer proficiency students should possess. Certainly it is an advantage for undergraduates to be able to produce documents using word processing and spreadsheet software, and certainly some understanding of email and the Internet is becoming increasingly important for many a college level class, as well as many employment environments. But do these skills come at a cost? How has the technology shaped the way people go about finding information?

I suspect that this topic could benefit from a variety of input sources. Many of us have direct contact with students, or have conclusions drawn from personal experience. Those teaching in LIS programs have to grapple with the "entry level" skills of their grad students and plot their development; others in public, academic and special libraries probably have notions about the qualities of the legendary "educated person" and may even deal with same on a regular basis. What should our role, as specialists, be for the rest of the educated public?

For the list to ponder:

• How has technology shaped the way people go about finding information?

• Just how important is it for an educated person to be fully literate with Information Technology?

• What should our role, as specialists, be for the rest of the educated public?

Martin J. Cohen
Media Services and Library Systems
Saint Mary's College of California
Moraga, CA 94575
voice: (510) 631-4229
fax: (510) 376-6097
mcohen@stmarys-ca.edu

OK. I've been a enough of a listener on this excellent list. I'm in the midst of planning a new academic library building and writing a plan for library information resources. If I don't have some opinions about this question, I'd better resign (at least from the list...).

Ned poses several questions and does the parsing for us. Here are some observations and speculations:

1. There's much less browsing either of journals (the few best titles in the field) or of books on the shelf. There's also less asking questions either of the instructor or of the Reference librarian. There's much more sitting at a machine and typing one or two words into a box on the screen, and then paging through the list of citations (URLs, periodical article titles, book titles, whatever) that the machine returns in response. There's much more scanning of a variety of texts (Web pages, periodical articles on the screen, etc). I think that in researching a paper the average student at any level is looking at many more types of sources than would have been the case 30 years ago. Most of this increase is not in monographs. Are the sources "inhaled and digested"? Couldn't say.

2. Are more than "minimal information finding skills" needed? Let's say that the above describes minimal skills, i.e. find a box, type in a word, and look through whatever comes back. If it was true 30 years ago (and I agree with Ned that it was) that "indexes (in most fields) were viewed as superfluous" that's probably still true. Except that, without knowing it, students are using indexes much more. As Ned says, "the real work is conceptual in nature." That is, a matter of thought, judgment, perception, understanding. If learning really were mainly about finding information, then professors who give their students photocopied readers or whose courses revolve entirely around lectures and required readings have done all the work. The student would have nothing to do (but learn what's in front of them) as all the information is there. Hmm... that pretty well describes a large fraction of education at almost all levels. So when Ned asks "how important is it for an educated person to be fully literate with IT", he's not asking the question in a global sense. We could probably confidently answer: IT skills (in the sense of knowing your way around a library) probably contribute no more than 5 per cent overall. Being able to read and find your way around a given text (table of contents, book index, knowing the structure of a research article), and even more important, to judge whether it's relevant, valuable, or trash are more important than being able to find the text in the first place since other people can put it in your hands.

3. Specialists in dealing with the 5 per cent? A respectable, though not central role. Depends who _we_ are or define ourselves to be. I think I've described the past and maybe some of the present. Hope someone else has a sense of the future. I'm anxious to see.

Diane Nahl
University of Hawaii
Information and Computer Sciences
Library and Information Science Program
voice: 808-956-5809
Fax: 808-956-5835
nahl@hawaii.edu

I've studied novice users of IT in libraries for several years and the findings indicate that appropriating IT is a complex process. If we look closer at what happens "at the terminal" or workstation, the apparent independence of the novice user asking fewer question of staff and typing in terms at will hides an emotional-cognitive dynamic that cannot be observed at a distance. Here are some consistent findings from high school and college populations:

1. Novices struggle most with term selection problems (they don't have the vocabulary for the topic the search, don't have the ability to develop narrower, broader, related terms in natural language, don't account for natural language term variations like variant endings and forms of words, make semantic errors by including irrelevant terms or leaving out important terms and concepts).

2. Novices also struggle with boolean logic and proximity rules, especially when different systems use different defaults, e.g., Web search engines default OR, CARL default AND, SilverPlatter default proximity, etc. Several logical errors are likely, including, wrong operator, missing operator, illegal operator, and conjunction fallacy (too many ANDs reduce the probability of retrieving to 0).

3. Novices do have numerous questions about how to search while in the process of searching, but do not ask them unless prompted or unless help is offered and nearby. In one study they asked an average of one question per minute, and in the early stages of their search they ask an average of 3 questions per minute. Why don't they ask typically when the questions are "in their heads"--several reasons, including, reticence, inertia, physical distance to get help, fear of losing a search if they leave the workstation, embarassment, an unrealistic belief that they can make it work (repeating the same error many times in case the machine will operate differently the next time--superstition), anxiety, and many other inhibiting emotional states.

These questions represent systemic information needs that are largely unknown to service providers, but they exist as a constant feature of the IT search process.

Expertise is elusive in this domain, even to experts. Students do need and appreciate learning IT search strategy skill. It's not just for school anymore--information retrieval skill is the foremost skill needed in a networked environment where school, work, and home IR tasks are converging.

Robert W. Bauchspies, Jr.
Middleburg, VA
Coordinator@foxcroft.org

Er... I don't know folks. It seems that the scope of this theme has allowed us to put all our ducks in the water. Specifically, issues of information retrieval (IR), information literacy and information behavior are being presented. Surely one overlaps with the next and the questions Ned puts forth invite such diversity. These questions must be asked in the face of IT ubiquity so that we may intelligently discern value to processes which are under way both for the immediate and long term.

I believe Diane Nahl however, has put her finger on it when it comes to affective issues with HCI and her ongoing research in this area is noteworthy. Martin Cohen, on the other hand, describes a slightly bigger picture where service personnel are bypassed through increasing perceptions of self reliance as more students gain exposure and confidence (?) using IT.

I offer the following 2 cents worth in direct response to Ned's questions and in turn attempt to suggest some additional insight (mind you these are merely opinions and you know what "they" say about opinions).

"How has technology shaped the way people go about finding information?"

By saying technology shaping the way people do x, we dismiss the human R & D which went into the motivation. Technological determinism on the other hand, especially when driven by less than social intent is a curious and often too absent concern. Sociologist David Lyon has written some interesting work regarding this and let us not forget Jacques Ellul as well.

Clearly, technology has made finding information more convenient for some if this "some" is part of the "haves" group. I would add that it has made us lazy and too assuming as well. Valuable comments made by Dr Nahl attest to psychological issues involved in the information search using the IT interface yet Mr Cohen makes the keen observation of multiple sources merged to the desk top suggesting more, not less, use of traditional library resources.

Poorly constructed searches however, like the poorly phrased question leave the researcher floundering. In the former however, excessive information return (a common electronic phenomenon for many), is less likely to be whittled down as is greater focus brought to a research question. Yes machines help here as well but the paper trail method of scholarship remains in tact such that IT merely speeds the facilitation. Discovery however, is as much surfing the net as browsing the stacks and you're not always sure what you will find (for better or worse).

"Just how important is it for an educated person to be fully literate with Information Technology?"

Alas, "an educated person" and IT literacy. Quite honestly a dangerous question given the oral tradition, different "kinds" of knowledge and yes, different ways and means toward acquiring an "education". If you mean an institutional education (such as via colleges or universities (rather than the St. E variety)) than I would suggest that on a 1 to 10, about an 8. It is the tool of today and for the near term at least, tomorrow.

My biggest grievance with the issue is what we have been hearing that "if you don't acquire these skills" you'll be left behind. Science and math is all that matters, etc. Macroeconomics forces the trend but don't be fooled. Communication and critical thinking remain the pillars of intelligence along with some measure of literary competence and cognitive faculty.

"What should our role, as specialists, be for the rest of the educated public?"

Become generalists and seek out the uneducated masses, given we would have something of value to offer them, or is it rather, what they might be able to teach or offer "us"?

Ned Fielden
San Francisco State University
Reference/Instruction
1600 Holloway Ave.
J. Paul Leonard Library
San Francisco, CA 94132-4030
Voice: (415) 338-1454
fielden@sfsu.edu

Some very interesting comments have been posted from a variety of listmembers. Martin Cohen suggests that students indeed are using more information sources than ever before but that the ability to critically evaluate a source remains much more important than discovery abilities. Diane Nahl, whose work examining some of the cognitive aspects of searching is worth a close look, (JASIS April '96, Research Strategies S93) hints at the extraordinary internal complexity of online searching. Robert Bauchspies gently chides us for having all our ducks in the water at once-- information technology, information literacy and information behavior -- and notes the need to look at the essential human processes which include critical thinking and communication.

The technology aspects of IT really quite overshadow much of the underlying behavior for information searching. The tools are so new, for the bulk of the population, that it is hardly surprising that their use generates an extraordinary range of emotions (from fear and annoyance to awe and amusement) and results of decidedly mixed quality.

Stuart Sutton and Nancy Van House have produced some interesting work (the "panda paper" in JELIS S96 [http://sims.berkeley.edu/~vanhouse/panda.html], and a contribution to the California Library Assoc.'s document that includes a discussion of "dimensions of practice" [http://www.cla-net.org/pubs/future.html]) describing how the profession has, over time, diverged from a tool-making mode (card catalog, subject catalog schemes) to a tool-using mode, and that this movement has eroded the profession's status and indeed, independence. While there are LIS degrees out there in the IT field, some at work on interfaces, others in organizational schema, I suspect that most members of this list would describe themselves as extremely adept tool users rather than tool creators.

What responsibilities do we have to offer our tool-using public? It is very difficult to teach good online search strategies without dealing with the nature of computers and what functions they do well.

How do humans best acquire IT skills, and most of all, how do we encourage the critical faculties necessary for them to separate the grain from the chaff?

James H. Sweetland

School of Library & Information Science
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53201
Voice: (414) 229-6840
Fax: (414) 229-4848
sweetlnd@csd.uwm.edu

Some thoughts based on my own observation, but mostly on a research project I directed a couple of years ago (i.e., pre Web, more or less). (Project not at my current university.)

The project: several groups of freshmen composition students were followed for a full semester. During this time, they had to write four papers. In preparation for this class (in many sections) the instructors came up with a basic bibliography for each of the 4 topics (books and articles) and put the material on reserve. In addition, the library in question provided office space for two instructors (who also had at least some library training) to be available for advice. The point was supposed to be to develop critical thinking skills as well as writing and library research skills.

The results: few students ever made appointments or otherwise saw the in-library consultants. Very little use was made of the reserve material. Examination of a sample of the papers confirmed the library records. What did the students do?

Based on examination of the citations for one of the papers, students appeared to learn very rapidly that the library had an article database (Infotrac) which included the length of the article as part of the citation. In essence, students consistently went to the effort of searching the database, obtaining the shortest articles, rather than "merely" obtaining the "easy-to-use" packet of reserve materials. Or, what the students learned was that they could get many "citations" which involved very little reading and make the paper look "scholarly". The irony was that, as one might expect, the shorter articles were not the "best" in terms of content.

My observations --

I have seen students working on class assignments and also interning at reference desks in various libraries. Many have a tendency to try the Web for all questions as the first (if not only) source. It appears in many cases they willingly spend up to a half hour trying Web resources, even when someone suggests they could get the same info by walking, say, 20 feet and looking at a standard printed reference source.

In the first case, it appears the principle of least effort is going on, but defined a bit differently than one would expect (retrieval is harder, but reading and analyzing are easier). In the second, in fact the searcher is applying more time and effort.

Re: recent postings, I too have seen students prefer a fulltext database because they get the article on the spot, vs a citation database which requires multiple steps. I suggest it isn't necessarily the multiple steps per se, but the proven experience of probable failure, which operates here:

I get the citation. When I check the library catalog, it doesn't own the journal. If it does own it, the volume isn't on the shelf. If it is on the shelf, the issue or pages are missing. If the item is present, the photocopiers are not working or make wretched copies.

Tentative hypothesis:

Technology is, at least, leading to rising expectations. But, the expectation is ease of effort and speed of response, rather than "quality". Will Gresham's Law apply here, so that the information systems will overemphasize speed + ease and underemphasize accuracy and other quality aspects of information?

Leigh Estabrook
Dean and Professor
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
501 East Daniel
Champaign, IL 61820

The Graduate School of Library and Information Science is now beginning the third year of a FIPSE grant that pairs LIS students with students from other disciplines in their "capstone" projects. Since we do not have enough LIS students for all teams, we have been able to study the effects of the LIS student on the quality of these capstone projects. (An example of capstone projects, most of which have been in engineering thus far, is "designing a better baby bottle.) These projects in engineering are real problems in real firms. One of the best examples of the value of an information professional to one of these teams is the team that was asked to design a new kind of hydraulic pump -- a kind the company believed did not exist. Within a few days our LIS student was able to show that there were already six (I am not exactly sure of the number) firms already making such a pump -- and one was only a few miles down the road from the company working with the students.

Our students enroll in a course in "information consulting" for one semester and the second semester are teamed with a capstone team. Since our numbers are still small, our evaluative conclusions must be cast as tentative, but the faculty working with the students and most of the student teams feel that having an information professional on the team does make a difference--and our students learn skills they could not learn otherwise.

Betsy McKenzie
Director
Suffolk University Law Library
41 Temple St.
Boston, MA 02114
Voice: (617) 573-8705
Fax: (617) 723-3164
emckenzi@acad.suffolk.edu

I have worked in academic law libraries for the past 11 years, where full text databases have been available for student use on home computers as well as library computers 24 hours a day, with "free" (to the student, that is) printing. We have seen an interesting (and disheartening) trend to quick and dirty searching and printing everything found, with no critical decisionmaking about what is relevant and what is not. The result is that there is too much for the students to go through. In one extreme example, first-year students just handed in their printouts with no sorting, reading or analysis. I don't know if this is due to the time pressure on first-year law students, but I have a bad feeling it's not just that.

William Arthur Liebi
Academic librarian
Stadt- und Universitaetsbibliothek Bern
CH-3000 Bern 7 Switzerland
Voice: +41 +31 320 32 259
Fax: +41 +31 320 32 99
liebi@stub.unibe.ch

Optimal information retrieval is one prerequisite of successful research.

An important aspect of our current discussion topic is thus information behavior, the behavior of users during the information retrieval process. This process can be subdivided into several distinct steps:

1. Identification of information needs
2. Selection of information resources
3. Implementation of search strategies
   1. Choice of relevant descriptors or codes
   2. Application of syntax rules
4. Evaluation process
   1. Preliminary evaluation of search results
   2. eventual reformulation of search queries
   3. Final evaluation of search results

In considering each step of the information retrieaval process, we become aware when information technology enters into play and how it affects the user and the assisting professional.

To 1.:
Identification of information needs starts with problem formulation. Sometimes, the user is a lay person, sometimes, he is an expert in his field. If the professional is expected to assist the user in optimizing problem formulation and identification of information needs, the professional has to get indications from the user. This implies that the professional must be able to interview the user in a pertinent manner.

To 2.:
One has to know the relevant sources regarding a specific question. The professional may give hints to the user.

To 3.:
In most cases, information technology-based systems such as OPACs, CD-ROM or online databases are to be consulted. These systems, first of all, constrain the end-user to define CLEAR-CUT, CORRECT, SPECIFIC SEARCH QUERIES if he wants to retrieve data successfully. Thinking in concepts as well as procedural skills play a decisive role. The hidden "emotional-cognitive dynamic" (Diane Nahl) on the side of the unexperienced user demands intuition and tact from the assisting professional.

To 4.:
Evaluation leads back to problem formulation. The results should match the information needs. One has to discern between often huge masses of problem-relevant and not relevant data and be flexible to reformulate search strategies. Betsy McKenzie states a trend to "quick and dirty searching", especially among first year students which "just handed in their printouts with no sorting, reading or analysis". This is obviously a second serious repercussion of information technology: Critical thinking, as the FACULTY TO SCRUTINIZE SEARCH RESULTS, is compulsory for users. To instill such a thinking mode in the users is a strenuous task for the concerned professionals.

Diane Nahl
Assistant Professor
School of Library and Information Studies
University of Hawaii
Honolulu, HI 96822
Voice: (808) 956-5809
Fax: (808) 956-5835

An important aspect of our current discussion topic is thus information behavior, the behavior of users during the information retrieval process. This process can be subdivided into several distinct steps:

1. Identification of information needs
2. Selection of information resources
3. Implementation of search strategies
   1. Choice of relevant descriptors or codes
   2. Application of syntax rules
4. Evaluation process
   1. Preliminary evaluation of search results
   2. eventual reformulation of search queries
   3. Final evaluation of search results

In considering each step of the information retrieval process, we become aware when information technology enters into play and how it affects the user and the assisting professional."

He also elucidates the details of each stage, and I think we can agree that this is an idealized representation of the stages which actually involve novice users in much backtracking and many empty sets and bloated sets.

In studies of their search decision-making process I discovered that novices experience numerous "systemic information needs" that arise in their use of the system. If there is personal assistance available these can be dealt with, but realistically, often there is no assistance beyond online help or printed handout style help, especially for remote users. This is attributed to budget cuts, low staffing levels, limited reference service hours, and the crush of huge numbers of novices either present or remotely accessing systems. These systemic information needs arise even after formal, workshop type instruction and persist, tapering off, for several hours of use (five or more hours) after the instruction.

I believe that much of the information behavior we can observe in the use of technology for research that has been discussed here and in the literature, stems from the mismatch of the complexity of "user-friendly" retrieval systems, the ultimate lack of assistance available to novice users, and the underuse of retrieval systems by faculty requiring students to do research and use these systems.

Professor Tom Wilson
Head of Department of Information Studies
University of Sheffield
Sheffield S10 2TN, U.K.
Voice: +44-114-282-5081
Fax: +44-114-278-0300
T.D.Wilson@Sheffield.ac.uk

Leigh's contribution is an interesting one, from a variety of points of view, not least of which is its relationship to the history of information science. When Jason Farradane established the first society for information scientists (the Institute of Information Scientists) he defined the "information scientist" as one working in a research team to support the information needs of that team. He had experience of setting up team support of that kind during his time in the sugar company Tate and Lyle. As Leigh shows, the model can be very helpful to research teams and cost-effective for the organization since it is one way of ensuring that all teams are high-performing teams (see Tom Allen's early Ph.D. work) -- and yet... how many organizations are prepared to bear the costs?

Leigh Estabrook
Dean and Professor
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
501 East Daniel
Champaign, IL 61820

William Arthur Liebi
Academic librarian
Stadt- und Universitaetsbibliothek Bern
CH-3000 Bern 7 Switzerland
Voice: +41 +31 320 32 259
Fax: +41 +31 320 32 99
liebi@stub.unibe.ch

I appreciate Diane Nahl's comment on my summary of information behavior focusing on technology-based information systems. During the regular two, sometimes more, hours spent weekly as a reference librarian and, occasionally, by giving workshop-type introductory courses for OPAC or Internet use in small groups, I become aware of the upsurging "systemic information needs" of novices.

What can be done to cope with the difficulties arising through the "complexity" of information systems, the "ultimate lack of assistance available" and the "underuse of retrieval systems by faculty", as Diane mentioned?

Central university libraries for instance could extend their role as a pacemaker in information retrieval teaching and support. Or should we even reconsider the functions of the library as a whole and shift to what has been called the "teaching library"?

A re-evaluation of the functions of the library would comprise all its actual duties, tasks, services or products. In this perspective, budget shortages and limitations of personnel resources mean that the introduction of new functions is only possible, if traditional functions are redimensioned or even eliminated. Decisions are difficult but perhaps inevitable; they should be made on a sound basis.

A comprehensive model description of information behavior, as it "ought to be," could serve in some respects as guideline to establish a future "teaching library"; the same model description could also serve as a bottom line for a political strategy to claim the necessity of a "teaching library."

Ned Fielden
San Francisco State University
Reference/Instruction
1600 Holloway Ave.
J. Paul Leonard Library
San Francisco, CA 94132-4030
Voice: (415) 338-1454
fielden@sfsu.edu

Many thanks to those who have posted regarding the topic "the impact of technology on the research process." Universally the comments have been provocative and thoughtful, and perhaps suggest directions for further study.

James Sweetland describes a study regarding freshman information seeking behavior, and the tendency towards "speedy success" thwarted by the indiscrimination of the students. Leigh Estabrook mentions situations that demonstrate the value of specialists in information systems and resources that provide unexpected "value added" to various projects. William Liebi elucidates a model of information retrieval that hints at the complexity involved (these models are fascinating in themselves, and help point to areas that could benefit from further examination.) Betsy McKenzie notes the trend towards "quick and dirty searching" and Diane Nahl regards the "mismatch" of factors in searching (complexity of interfaces, lack of help, absence of instructor familiarity w/ search system) as a major stumbling block to search success. Tom Wilson notes the historical patterns of the research.

This is obviously a very complicated arena, particularly as one looks more deeply into the topic. The list has responded with insightful observations and intriguing questions. Whether we like it or not, the existent searching and retrieval technology influences many end users, and hopefully some understanding of this influence will assist us in the education of end users, and help provide theoretical models that help us understand how humans go about problem-solving their information needs utilizing whatever resources are available. I suppose one final question is where ultimately the responsibility for education in the sort of essential evaluative ability that we prize so highly resides in the higher education pantheon -- discipline specific methodology classes, specialist classes in information systems, online searching seminars, or what?

Many thanks to list-members who have responded to this issue.

You may join the discussion and look over the list of past and future topics.

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