I'm currently helping Prof Michael D'Eredita with his undergraduate course "What's the Big Idea". The course encourages students to generate ideas and make it happen by starting their own start-ups. Prof. D'Eredita believes that there is a gap between students and the information they need. So I'm working with faculty, students and subject specialists to identify students' information needs and information seeking behavior and thus develop research guides, reference and instruction support to help students with their pursuits.
In recent class sessions, students were required to draw doodles and the doodles were later scanned and displayed on the screen for the class to identify what each doodle is about. We can imagine (and is exactly what happened) there would be different interpretations to one single doodle. Why? Because people view things differently. It all depends on the person viewing it.
Every individual may have very different information seeking behavior. While we are saying "we are helping students to find information they need" by developing information literacy programs, research guides and instruction sessions, we have to think about their information seeking behavior. How do they search information? How do they keep updated with new technologies and industrial trends? What databases or other information resources that they find helpful and valuable? What potential improvements they see in the current research guides?
Another thing I want to point out is that, I see a gap between students and librarians. Many students think librarians are the people sitting at the circulation desk and checking out books. They have no idea about subject specialists nor what librarians can do to help them with their assignments and research. One of the librarians I talked to told me that some students were very surprised when she offered them research instructions on business research. In fact, the librarian has a background in marketing and is definitely an information professional in business field. Obviously, those students have no idea about what the librarian can do for them and have never checked research guides listed on the library website.
All I am saying is, we cannot consider ourselves "helpful" unless students agree so. And it will not be helpful creating research guides if no one uses it, or if the research guides don't address their information needs. Campus outreach and support from faculty members are indeed needed to increase awareness and participation.
A big and somewhat related news today is the announcement of iPhone 4S. I have seen some opposite comments about the product release. Some people believe the not-that-surprise device with limited upgrades is the proof showing the company is going downturn without Steve Jobs as CEO, while there are also people think it is the company's “hunger marketing” strategy to keep users' high expectation for next generation device and the strategy (not releasing iPhone5 today) will also make the company better prepared for competitors such as Android and Windows Phone. Who knows what will happen? Not Steve Jobs, not Tim Cook, not Apple company, only the market will tell.
