By Margaret Quinlan, Knowledge Manager at Grenzebach Glier and Associates

The Chapter's Book Club recently discussed Ambient Findability by Peter Morville. We began by commenting on how the book is organized (or not organized, as we decided). Interestingly enough, one of us had also had the author as a guest professor, and the class was much like the book: a string of very interesting topics in no discernable order. An information architect by trade, Morville has not designed a how-to manual, but rather a treatise on theory and technology – where we’ve been, where we are, and where we are headed.

Buffet Of Resources

Our conversation led to a discussion of the seemingly unimaginable buffet of resources available to the public, and while that is indisputably a positive step, it can be misleading if one doesn’t know what to believe. We then compared notes on how we usually determine credibility of unknown sources. Our preferred criteria include copyright dates, design quality of the website, presence or absence of spelling or grammar errors, whether there are corroborating links and if they are well-maintained or broken.

On a related topic, what are the pros and cons of searching exclusively online? We all know the disadvantages to limiting a search by such an immaterial criterion. Being information professionals, we certainly have a better understanding of the limitations of what is online, and we have seen members of the public fall into different traps. Among them are the difficulty of determining the background of the information you see on the page and the danger that it is outdated or irrelevant. (such as a law library patron finding material that supports his or her case, but for a different state).

Least Painful Path

Morville quoted Mooers’ Law, which brings out an excellent point. If seeking additional resources is going to mean more work (or as he says, “painful and troublesome”) to the user, we will not want it, even if information is available that is relevant. So the moment it becomes painful (as in requiring more analysis, or showing that what we’ve done already is wrong or pointless), we stop and just use what we have. Sounds very believable, doesn’t it?

Moving on, we shifted into a discussion of social networking and what sites we use. Among them are MySpace, Friendster, LinkedIn, and Facebook. As it turns out, one of us got her current job through LinkedIn! We then quizzed the youngest attendee (all of 24 years old) which sites he uses and his perception of the others. As you might have guessed, Facebook is used as an online home base and social calendar, and if you don’t have a presence there your friends had better, or you will never hear about any parties.

Appropriate Technology Changes

That propelled us to reminisce about our first experiences with online search. Who wouldn’t remember that? We used dial-up, we used Dialog, we sat at the green-screened terminal, we nested our parentheses and structured our searches with the utmost care. Technology sure has come a long way, and this book certainly took us on a journey of where we have been and into exciting new applications that are yet to come.

For book suggestions and for the next book club meeting, contact Margaret Quinlan at quinlanm@hotmail.com [1].