Why Librarians Hate (and Students Love) the Single Search Box
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“Am I so out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.”
— Principal Skinner, The Simpsons
My click-baity title is something of an unfair generalization. There are exceptions, of which I am one. And there are also plenty of times when a specialized interface, say to do chemical structure searching, is the most useful tool for the job. Such cases, however, are increasingly becoming anomalies, considering the growing usefulness of a “one stop shopping” approach as taken by integrated library discovery layers.
I’m reminded of a recent photograph showing horses coming to the rescue by towing a semi-truck. It’s an endearing image, but then again, how many of us ride a horse to work? People have a natural inclination to nitpick the limitations of new technologies while also doubling down on increasingly outdated methods. Not that newer is necessarily better, as evidenced by the haphazard “upgrades” to WorldCat and Nexis Uni, both of which revamped their platform with slick designs but ditched some rather basic functionality in the process.
Even still, librarians have a poor track record of estimating how much ease of use and accessibility can appeal to end users. One of the first published reviews of Wikipedia in a library journal stated, “Now we have the latest endeavor that is a joke at best, Wikipedia. I am afraid it is meant to be a communal encyclopedia of the people, by the people, and for the people, which shall not perish from the earth, even if it looks like a prank.”
The way that discovery layers operate is a fundamental reformation of traditional research methods. Persistent objections to this approach, given some recent advances in ranking algorithms and modern search engine technology in general, are only based on little more than, “but that’s not how it used to work.” In other situations, we only partially embrace the capabilities of new systems. Skeuomorphic designs, such as bento boxes, betray more of a fondness for how research used to have to be done than a willingness to make the most out of what’s currently available.
I recall having difficulty locating the record for Designing with Web Standards in an earlier version of WorldCat because the “with” in my search statement functioned as a proximity command: w/1, or within one word of. Since “designing” was within two words of “web,” no pertinent results were shown. Can you imagine if discovery layers were built to operate like the OPACs of old, complete with stop words, case-sensitivity, and operators such as this?
You can actually replicate this problem, if your legacy version of WorldCat via FirstSearch is still active, by doing a title search for “designing with web standards” (without quotes). No wonder it’s been suggested by some librarians that Amazon may be the best place for people to find books on a topic of interest. Non-librarians, after all, have no qualms about gravitating towards preferring products that are easier to use, whether or not we look on in disdain.
Librarians can really get hung up on the wrong things. The level of precision provided by inputting complicated search parameters into an esoteric interface is by and large both time consuming and no longer necessary. Think about the revolutionary London Underground map, which abandoned the need to represent the relative positioning of stations to exact scale in favor of showing straighter lines. Did people at the time object to the more readable map’s decreased geographic accuracy?
Maybe we’re also not checking our assumptions enough in professing that a difficult to learn search process is somehow better, or that optimal results can only be obtained if you expend the maximum effort in your research process. The best way to provide library services can be counter-intuitive at times. Unlike business websites, for example, where a high or rapid bounce rate is a bad thing, because it signals a decrease in sales opportunities, we should want to minimize the duration that people have to use the library, at least as far as it concerns search and discovery tasks consuming patrons’ time.
Last summer, I heard a politician on the radio declare that, once you accounted for the increased surface area due to changes in elevation, “Colorado’s bigger than Texas.” I was suspicious, especially since a web search on the topic turned up similar claims, including “Idaho would be the largest” and “West Virginia has the largest surface area.” Sure enough, based on data I received from a GIS researcher, all of those statements are false.
Colorado is actually the eighth largest state, by both flat and surface area. West Virginia is the most rugged continental state, but still the 41st largest by surface area. There are a few changes in overall size rankings when you account for three dimensions, but not many. Washington State overtakes Oklahoma, for example. Florida is the flattest state, by the way.
Anyway, I’m sure that Colorado politician feels a little smug about his false belief regarding the state’s size, just as we may retain a sense of worth in having to instruct novice library users how to navigate interfaces which offer far from optimal usability. It is understandably threatening to be faced with innovations that render part of your job obsolete. Maybe that’s why librarians can be so prejudiced against change.
I’ve worked with discovery layers for the better part of a decade now. I sure as hell know they are far from perfect. But my main struggle is finding the best tactics for adjusting colleagues’ attitudes from a mindset typified by, “don’t ever use that search box on the homepage” towards a willingness to support an improved means to an end.
At some point, it just takes time and patience. Several of the best changes in my library took place shortly after someone retired. Similarly, in the words of Steve Jobs, “Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.” In the meantime, we could all do a little better at ensuring we aren’t a roadblock to progress ourselves.
