At the Online Information Conference held in London last week, SLA Europe ran the European Librarians Theatre (ELT): three lunchtime sessions discussing various aspects of information management in Europe. The ELT was sponsored by EBSCO. Stephen Phillips reports on the discussion at the ELT on Tuesday November 29th.
Panel:
Raymond Berard, Director, Bibliographic Agency for Higher Education (ABES)
Wouter Schallier, Executive Director, LIBER (Association of European Research Libraries)
Andrew Woolfson, Director of Knowledge Management and Capability, Reynold-Porter-Chamberlain, UK
Iain Simpson, Owner/Founder, ‘We Are Maverick’
Iain Simpson hosted this discussion and posed four questions, challenging the panel to comment on portal design and how information professionals (IPs) continue to develop their role and contribution to these technologies.
The panel were invited to comment on how IPs have adapted with the introduction and development of new technologies?
IPs have always adapted to change and will continue to do so. Their skills are well suited to the disciplines of search and curation in a digital world. That said, there is a need for IPs to develop a skill set more aligned with the technology – so there is a clear need for IPs to continue to invest in themselves to keep pace with technology. Indeed, there is a need for IPs to “push it” – by taking products and services to the users and integrating them into their clients’ processes as seamlessly as possible.
There was a feeling that some content providers have held IPs back in this space, their lack of understanding of requirements making it difficult to effectively integrate content sets into portals from both a technical and licensing perspective. IPs should take every opportunity to partner/collaborate with suppliers to influence their product development initiatives to improve leverage and relevance of their products. In some cases, vendors have become closer to their users than the IPs: a potential threat to the IP.
What did the panel consider to be the key design considerations for a portal to retain its relevance and usefulness?
When designing any portal it is imperative to recognise how it will be used by the target audience. Typical usage tends to consist of quick turns – dipping in and out to satisfy specific information needs. To do this successfully, the portal needs to be simple and intuitive to use. Functionality needs to be built around the users’ requirements and role based, better still, it should be dynamic and action oriented. If there is an option to personalise to individual needs, even better.
There are a range of qualities that contribute to the success of a portal, including innovation and uniqueness; knowledge of and interaction with users; durable, modern and adaptive to change; cooperative and partnering (with users and suppliers); well marketed and branded; with a good underlying business model and ROI.
If the portal is going to be successful, it needs to provide a seam of enriched information delivered direct to clients. The panel recognised that licensing issues can be a limiting factor and appealed to vendors to renovate their agreements to enable content to be delivered more effectively via these channels.
What are the challenges associated with the information literacy of portal users?
Contrary to popular belief, the panel’s experience suggest that new grads are no more information literate than older generations. There is a consistent expectation among users that content should be delivered to them “on a plate”, providing access to information with the minimum of effort on their part. Information literacy should be regarded as a core competency, portals provide an opportunity to nurture intellectual curiosity and encourage users to discover new information by facilitating serendipity. Information Literacy skills cannot be taught, but should be learned behaviour that is acquired as the user works develops their aptitude.
It is unfortunate that some portals are designed around the least experienced users – the lowest common denominator – stifling the opportunity to enable users to explore and encouraging continued poor practice. This is due, in part, to a focus on encouraging foot fall as a success measure for a site. IPs should try to identify more qualitative measures to evaluate the success of their portal. Portals also present opportunities to enrich data which can add value to traditional sources. IPs should develop success measures associated with transparency, how they encourage serendipity, how information is used, re-used and shared to avoid duplication of effort and consumption.
Despite the advances in free text search, metadata continues to be a critical element in the successful delivery of content to end users. Portals have evolved from fairly complex operating environments and moved with the times to become more Google-esque with faceted search facilities to make better use of the metadata to help users identify and isolate relevant information.
How will mobile devices shape information delivery and what strategies do we need for them?
Firstly, portals need to be platform independent, simple packaged content in “bite sized” apps to facilitate mobile access. There is a distinct and emerging requirement for IPs to design information for delivery to mobile devices, as traditional formats are not well suited to this platform. IPs need to continue to develop their understanding of the true value of mobile technology. As part of the evolution of the technology, the mobile platform needs to be facilitate both the consumption and creation of content.
In closing, the panel felt that mobile devices present a significant opportunity to reinvent the library/information service and how it delivers services to users.