Open AccessA Reference for That: Six Words
Author(s) -
Nicolette Sosulski,
David A. Tyckoson
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
reference and user services quarterly/reference and user services quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.443
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 2163-5242
pISSN - 1094-9054
DOI - 10.5860/rusq.57.1.6439
Subject(s) - desk , computer science , world wide web , natural (archaeology) , population , reference desk , sociology , history , demography , archaeology , operating system
Now, what I mean is that we are no longer able to think like regular members of the population when it comes to searching. We have come, more and more—over years on desk—to think like the indexer or taxonomist of a database, OPAC, or website. We do not realize the extent of this transformation—we just get more and more successful at finding things, not realizing how we find them changes or how we, incrementally, discover strategies that work. We are oblivious to these strategies we use until we have an aha moment and realize they are not obvious to anybody else. Although information science has made great strides in natural language searching programs, successful information literacy instruction still involves teaching laymen to think like indexers. However, we may not realize just how much our own thought processes have morphed and how different they are from those of our patrons.