Comments on the Social Aspects of Digital Libraries:
Information Needs -- Social Context and Culture

Ronald E. Rice
Professor
School of Communication, Information & Library Studies
Rutgers University

INTRODUCTION

Of course, the topic area of "Social Context and Culture" associated with the Social Aspects of Digital Libraries includes a wide range of consequential, difficult, ambiguous, and contested issues. In this short commentary, I'd like to provide a few comments on just a few of these issues.

POLITICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES TO ACCESS

Issues of access were mentioned in the workshop overview paper as a social issues, but not directly related to information needs. Access is multidimensional and contextual -- not just physical or financial or cognitive access -- so I would emphasize that one's social and cultural context will influence, facilitate, and constrain one's access to digital libraries. For example, there's an interaction between one's context and one's perceived "needs", thus what information, problems, conceivable solutions and systems are available influence what constitutes information and what could satisfy the need. One might argue that the whole topic of "expectations" is embedded in the concept of access -- what types of information and problem solutions are accessible to one in their current context will obviously constrain one's expectations about a new system. Or, one's experience with institutional or technological systems and information will generate sometimes crippling expectations about the "digital library".

SOCIAL INTERFACE

We are becoming aware that the concept of "interface" includes much more than just the visible display on a system's terminal. For example, some cultural groups prefer interpersonal and informal sources of information, others prefer mass-mediated (such as tv), while others assume that online information systems are preferable. Thus, we need to provide choices of interfaces that match the preferred, habitual, or comfortable medium or mode and the metaphors, mental models, or common social settings of groups of users. One's current situation, environment, atmosphere is clearly part of the "social interface": crowded or noisy conditions, settings where others are waiting impatiently in line, service spaces that don't provide pencils and paper, places that are in corporate settings, etc., all would provide more or less suitable " social interfaces". Even the types of icons used may or may not be suitable for different contexts and cultural members. Finally, we should consider interface aspects and how they interact with the stages of the user's progress (or failure!). Thus, we should think of "system" as multi-faceted, taking on different contexts and usefulness in different phases or stages; i.e., terms such as "search process" or "search query" assume many prior successful steps and thus inherently limit designers' conceptions of plausible technical interfaces.

CONNECTIONS

We need to widen our concept of what constitutes a "system" and thus what components are potentially "connected" through a digital library system.

Assessments

For instance, most conceptions of information systems treat the (perhaps multi-media, even hyper-media) database item as the "result". But we know that information without evaluation or assessments of the motivating "need" as well as the "information" is at best useless and at worst misleading or dangerous. So, systems should connect "search results" with sources of evaluating, or perhaps even tools for assessing, those results. Perhaps such systems need to place greater emphasis on the context of the source and the presentation of information by providing and requesting annotations or evaluations by creators, filterers, other users.

Users and Non-users

One things we definitely know about computer networks, videotex and other online information services: one of the most valuable features is the ability to communicate with other users. That is, other people must also be considered as information resources. Systems should allow users to share their needs, information, and assessments with others known or unknown. Indeed, this wider context of "information" -- other communicators, serendipitous discoveries -- may be the best source of "value added" to such systems. There should also be ways to facilitate communication between opinion leader users and non-users in the group or subculture. Certainly a major social issue is extent and pattern of participation, so "non-users" should be considered part of the context, not just "hopefully potential" users.

FEEDBACK AND GROWTH AMONG USERS, PROVIDERS, SYSTEM

Finally, few systems are designed as adapting entities that interact and grow with their context of users and non-users. This is a special case of a more general social problem we all experience in technocratic contexts. It seems to be extremely difficult for human systems, such as groups, departments, and organizations, to learn. There is considerable literature and research on this problem of organizational learning, feedback across boundaries, shifts in perceptions, systemic versus individual actions. Boundaries become transparent yet impenetrable, individuals can see only limited aspects of the whole system, obligations and difficulties with roles get confused with specific personalities, resources are never sufficient, and people fill uncertainty with preferred interpretations. It often seems impossible, not worth it personally, or actually discouraged, for individuals to try to resolve problems that are systemic. So specific organizational procedures (or lack of them) or decision (or lack of them) that might seem to any particular individual as crazy or bureaucratic or unreasonable or just wasteful, yet not caused by an exceptional or radical action on the part of the individual, continue to haunt and hamper everyone who comes up against them. The problems become rationalized, routinized, acceptable, and eventually invisible -- yet everyone continues to pay and individually complain. No driver stops to remove an old tire from the road, so everyone has to drive around it, so it becomes a normal part of the road -- sort of an unusual routine -- until there's an accident. So digital libraries could establish significant precedent by emphasizing growth, feedback, and adaptability by providing processes for the system itself and system staff to learn directly from users, via the same as well as through supporting channels. That is, discussion lists about the system itself, online information about other media for communicating with the system staff or other users, ways of capturing troublesome sessions (at the user's request), perhaps ongoing "total quality" surveys fed back to developers but also made available to all users in a newsgroup, all would help to consider the social context and cultural concerns of those interested in digital libraries.
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