INLS 180 Day 20 Notes
What do you think is the most important thing SILS might do to
help YOU be better prepared to provide better than 50% accuracy service?
Main Points
Social exchange theory—self
interest, social balance
Social networks important to
communication/service
Information interactions
increasingly important to decision making
What people find in the
articles we discuss is dictated by their interests and experience
Understanding the variance in
human nature is crucial to info services
The more interaction, the
higher the probability of successful exchange
It is telling that so many of
us reacted negatively to the self-interest argument in SE theory
50% effectiveness in QA
across many services
Questions
Can we train ourselves to do
better QA with ‘macros’ e.g., greetings, confirmatory utterances, closings?
Is it possible to analyze
human relationships analytically [psychological school of belief]
Do rules/principles apply,
e.g., zero sum?
What are the incentives to be
‘nice’ at the reference desk?
Is our social good will bank
more important to our personal or professional life?
Is social exchange theory crosscultural?
Has the melding of economic
and social exchange unduly commercialized our sense of value in all exchange?
How do we rationalize our
interest as a helping profession?
What are the exchange
relations in LiveJournal?
How do user populations
differ in use of reference services (e.g., science vs
humanities)? [see
Bates; recall Chatman]
How to communicate limitations
of library or system without turning people away?
Do we make life decisions the
same way we do interpersonal communication (exchange?)
What is more important, sales
skill or accuracy?
2. Collaboration
Why collaborate?
What are the barriers?
Examples: professional firms vs individual practitioners; design teams, paired
programming
Why don’t
co-CEOs or co-presidents not work?
Collaboration dimensions
Time: synchronous vs
asynchronous
Space: face-to-face vs remote
3. One-minute paper
What was the big point you learned in class today?
What is the main, unanswered question you leave class
with today?