SLA Europe had an excellent turnout for their most recent evening event.
The
panel of three speakers (professor Dave Nicholas of UCL, Kathy Jacobs of Pinsent
Masons and Roger James of the
Some
of the interesting points raised:
- We are all the Google generation - UCL has undertaken
extensive research which demonstrates that older people are actually better at
using Google than the young
- Digital transition means a loss of contact with our
audience/user community, the decoupling of the information intermediary and the
end-user. But how significant is
this? Have we ever really known how
people behave or use information?
- People want fast, direct and pragmatic access to information
- so sell the abstracts and give away the PDFs
- Users want immersive social information environments - they
are used to Facebook/Amazon type interfaces which recognise them and prompt
them to look at related topics
-
We need to match the usability of Google when we present
information - clean design, white space, no clutter, speed of access, no need
for training. Multiple user interfaces
to different content sets are not a good idea
- Information literacy and search skills do need to be
introduced and enforced - poor searches which yield incomplete, out of date or
inaccurate information are real business risks
- In a corporate environment, consider whether it is easier to
purchase a book via Amazon or via the information department? In most cases it is easier (and quicker) to
buy from Amazon
- And/or Google? Don’t
take on Google because you’ll lose.
Accept that it will be ‘and’ Google
- Creation or curation?
Are we storing old stuff or creating new?
Neil
Infield chaired the event and led a lively Q&A session which required
energetic transfers of the microphone around the room.
Melanie Goody
Director of Consultancy
PS: Roger James has uploaded his slides onto LinkedIn (you will need a LinkedIn account to view them).
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