There's a reason people think libraries are hard to use

On Monday and Tuesday I'll be at a conference called Access and Infrastructure: Navigating Our Libraries in the New Information Landscape. I'll be on a panel to talk about how "millennials" search for information. The audience will be mostly academic librarians, many with technical services (behind the scenes) jobs. It's not terribly fair to make sweeping generalizations about an entire generation, but I'd say that most teenagers and college-aged folks have much higher expectations of their information systems than previous generations did. Perhaps this is because they have direct experience with systems that work quickly, easily, and transparently. So why should they put up with legacy information systems that don't work as well? I plan to use a search on car repair to demonstrate the Millennial User Experience. Here's what happens when you search our (University Library) catalog using a "subject heading" search. Horrible. Here's a key word search. Better, but not great. Here's a Google search. Lovely. And finally, here's an Amazon search. Outstanding!

It used to be that if you had trouble finding books in a library, you felt like it was your fault. In worst case scenarios, libraries could be intimidating places that made you feel stupid. Now there's something to offset that kind of searching experience. We can't pretend anymore that library catalogs are user-centered creations. They work well for us librarians, not so well for library users. But solutions don't come easily or cheaply. Still, I'm glad the library world is taking a good hard look at these issues.