Re: [LIS-Forum] Do digital libraries violate the Third Law?

Dr. Tapaswi, Your situation reminds me of one I experienced when I was in a Hospital library. This was during the Pre-Internet days and we had Medline on CD ROM A doctor came to me and said that he wanted to do a Medline search on "Epilepsy in Women: Psychosocial factors". He wanted this because he had to contribute to a book chapter. Conversation between us went as follows: Doc: This would be very simple and straightforward. Me: No doctor, this is going to take you some time. Doc: Why - we just need to search on Epilepsy AND women AND (pscyhologcial OR sociological) Me: No doctor - it is more complex than that (especially as this is for a book chapter and your needs would be slightly comprehensive Doc: Let us do something. We first do a search my way, and then your way Me: Sure Doc - (does the search and gets 35 pretty good references). See - this seems pretty comprehensive to you. I really wonder if we need to do anything more. Me: You have to keep up the bargain - it is my turn. I do the search and he watches. At the end of it he has more references , and stuff that he had not imagined existed. The key difference was - with his search, he only retrieved references that broadly searched sociological and psychological factors as concepts. In my search we got these general ones PLUS specific ones like epilepsy in women related to marriage, work, divorce etc etc. Doc - Hats off to you - I did not know there were these levels of nuances in searching. Me - Thank you ............ it was my pleasure to be of help! And doc - when you are writing for a book chapter - I am sure you needed both general and specific references......... Doc - Yes - that is really true. The catch in today's situation ...........the user does not come to you - since he/she has google access at his work-desk. You do not have an opportunity to convince as I did. My suggestion: Discuss with your users, and conduct a few similar experiments like I did, and see if that will help them understand. I'd love to hear about positive results from you! Regards Vasumathi Sriganesh Director, QMed Services Pvt. Ltd. A-3, Shubham Centre, Cardinal Gracious Road Chakala, Andheri East, Mumbai 400099, India Ph: 91-22-28229223 Fax: 91-22-28224358 Mobile: 98211-14510 Email: vasu@qmedin.com, Web: www.qmedin.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dr. Murari P Tapaswi" To: "Sukhdev Singh" ; Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 1:52 PM Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] Do digital libraries violate the Third Law? Colleagues, The article Shri Sukhdev Singh pointed to is interesting in today's context. It ends saying "Getting authoritative information sources to potential users" is the job of Librarians and Libraries, besides so many points in favour of libraries. We have built a good library including 'well organised resources' on intranet for users on library's website keeping 5 laws as guiding principles. (The phrase, I used 'good library' in earlier sentence is not my opinion but user's reflections). Recently, full-text access facility to lot many e-journals was added as a part of CSIR consortium. In order to enhance our organised resources, I thought of having an informal chat/dialogue with my fellow users. Here are some exchanges (though I have used a term 'USER' it is collection of opinions expressed by >10 users!): ME: Dear .. as you know we now can access lot many journals for full-text access. I hope you are reading my notices from time to time. USER: Yaaaa...... Our library resources are fantastic! We really enjoy. ME: Yes. But how do you reach to the desired article? I mean, are you using the journal links that are provided on library's website? USER: No..no. I normally search for the subject that we are working on and not biased to any specific journal. ME: Wonderful. Do you use the subject databases on our library's website? USER: No...I normally use Google. You know.... everything is available there!! ME: Yes. But then you landup in hundred-thousand items. How do you go for the article that you really need? USER: Well.... I do not look at all the items but links on first few pages serve our purpose. ME: But sometimes you may miss with this something that is important and moreover we do not have access to all full-text resources that are linked on Google. USER: I do not think we miss anything that is important. Afterall, relevant articles are then cited repeatedly in the articles that we get linked to. And, yes, I understand that you can not provide all that we need so we go by abstracts or if the item is really required, you only get the same so quickly from other library..... how great is your service. ME: But then why you compromise for the limitations of Google when we have other good organised resources with us? USER: Dr Tapaswi, it is difficult to learn everything that is available. Google serves our purpose and I when it serves our purpose, why should we look here and there? No. We can't do that. There are so many other tasks also to be done....But don't get disheartened. Your library services are excellent! Do continue providing same. I am sure some one else would be using!! I am in a fix! Please help - how to make realise a 'Google happy' user understand that he is not really happy or alternatively, library services can make him more happier. Regards, - Tapaswi, NIO, Goa ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sukhdev Singh" To: Sent: Monday, April 04, 2005 10:04 AM Subject: [LIS-Forum] Do digital libraries violate the Third Law?

Dear Friends,

There is an interesting article on the following URL.

http://www.libraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA5121 79

Some Extracts are given below:

.."Every book, its reader" almost means that "resources look for people." Thus, the job of librarians is to help these resources find the people who want and need them the most. Library patrons, Ranganathan points out, often do not know enough about available resources to know what to request. Any organization of the electronic or physical library that focuses only on getting the readers what they ask for neglects two key components of good library practice: browsing and linking..

..Because of today's confusing array of resources, new violations of the third law have emerged. Consider search engines. No one focused on creating a "well-arranged collection" of e-resources can ignore that users are going to Google for quick or even substantive information requests. Google gives marvelously fast access to massive amounts of information (and misinformation). It is almost everyone's favorite place for a quick search. In fact, one could say that Google usually passes the fourth law (save the time of the reader) with flying colors—except when the plethora of hits slows the reader down. With the advent of Google Print and particularly Google Scholar, more and more students and researchers will begin their work on Google...

Any comments?

Sukhdev Singh, NIC. http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/indmedtraining/

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