Prof. Carol C. Kuhlthau has dynamic ideas about user-centered services in 21st century libraries. She asserts that patrons demand the "just for me" services that they believe new technology provides. She explains how this requires librarians to develop a new kind of reference instruction.

Carol C. Kuhlthau

Interview

1. What are the major changes that have occurred in libraries in the 21st century?

The big changes that have taken place in the past ten years have been related to technology and the big changes are related to the digitization of information, of sources of resources and the sources that are traditional library sources- particularly periodicals, journal articles, proceedings, and even some monographs are now available in digitized form and that changes the library considerably. The access to the Internet and all of the other information on the Internet changes the way people perceive the library. So those two aspects of technology have had a tremendous impact on our profession.

2. What are the benefits of these changes?

The benefits are that it provides more access for more people. People can access resources from a variety of different areas, their own home, their office where formerly they would have to go to a library to actually get access to materials. And that's a big benefit it provides people with a lot more access.

3. What are the challenges that librarians must face as a result of these changes?

There are so many challenges. It's really interesting to hear the people talk next door who are at Alexander Library and to watch them work over the years and watch how their work has shifted. All of the basic challenges of providing a collection and access to a collection are still there but there are different issues due to technology. In a prior age, there was a definite confined collection and a librarian would think about what would go into that collection, would select that collection. Now the challenge is that all that material is digitized. What is really in that collection and what is provided by access? There is access provided in that particular library but it's not really part of that collection. The kinds of issues blur. The challenges are tremendous in just the organizer role, managing, selecting and providing access. Then there are also the issues of people's perception of what the library does and what they can do on their own. What is the role of the professional librarian? That is a change and challenge for librarianship, not to lose our tradition but to be able to move into this new environment.

4. What problems result from increased technology in libraries? How does this technology create more uncertainty on the part of users?

There's the other side of this pervasive access and that's how do you select the materials that will be useful to you? It is important to be able to provide those services to people and to articulate those services so people perceive that the library can enable them to develop meaning-making in the face of the overload of information. I think I've talked about some of the problems with organizing and providing that collection in the development and management role. There's also the other side of the tremendous amount of information that people have available and then what do they do with that, and the problem that people think that searching is easy. People can't get to the information they need because they don't have the keyword or the concept of how you search this particular source and so there's the user education and user assistance problem.

The issue of uncertainty is interesting. There's the uncertainty relating to what resources are available and how many resources I can access. The other sense of uncertainty initiates information seeking and that uncertainty is what begins a creative project. With the amount of information it's easy to get into an information overload situation--getting so much information that it kind of blocks people out. It's easy for someone to get overloaded early on when they're trying to get an understanding of what this problem is about. The problem of uncertainty in the information search process has become more critical due to technology.

5. In the final chapter of Seeking Meaning, you assert that in order for librarians to continue valuable library service in the 21st century they need to develop "new roles." What are these new roles?

I see these roles as in the process of being developed and I don't see myself as having all the answers. As a profession we have some things we have to look at together and explore. What I tried to do in Seeking Meaning is to look at the roles of librarians in traditional ways and within these new environments and tried to explain them on different levels. So librarians organize and provide a collection, then orient people to what the collection is about and orient them to one particular source or a group of sources. But the area that is most critical it the one that promotes information seeking to achieve a task. I see librarians needing to get more understanding of what people are trying to do with the information without being intrusive but by being helpful. They must try to understand the tasks that the person is trying to accomplish. I see that as a key role of librarianship in the 21st century. More of a personalized service, yet how do you do that? That's the dilemma.

6. How do the new roles improve library users' learning experiences?

If you look at information seeking as a learning experience, librarians play a key role in that information seeking process. People can't really move ahead in this learning process. People expect to be able to get a quick and easy answer and they find that they can't make sense of this mass of information. A personalized information role for the information specialist is to find the zone of intervention, where people are having a great deal of problem moving ahead and they think they're doing something wrong. The librarian needs to understand where they are and the different kinds of information they need at different points in the process and guide them through the process.

7. Why are user-centered services becoming more necessary in libraries?

Because people have access to information in their workplace and at home with the Internet, the library becomes the one place they can go and get some help with process. I think this is an important role for the library. People have to be educated to understand that the library has this role and can help them in this process. Reference can enable people to work through this massive information to accomplish a task. I see developing user centered services that go beyond directing people to sources, although that is extremely important, and is the basis of our work. These will also enable people to work through the sources to accomplish a task, develop a new understanding.

8. Do you believe that this trend of increased user-centered services is harmful in any way? Why or why not?

It could be intrusive. It could be getting into someone's work. It may be annoying. I think it's a very delicate high professional work that librarianship moves into-- an area that requires a lot of finesse, intuition, tact, knowing when that intervention is important and when it isn't important. It's a matter of expertise, a matter of experience, being aware in this process and being able to hear the signs when it's time to step in and give someone some help and when it's time to leave people to their own devises, their own thinking, their own mulling.

9. Do you think too much user-centered services can make people less independent?

I don't think that. It may be something that we might think would happen. It's not a service that tells people I can do that for you, it's a service that lets a person know that if you're getting stuck, I have some strategies that might help you to work through these sources. I think that kind of service would help people, be useful and is extremely important.

10. What services do you foresee librarians providing to users in the future? What will librarians do differently in five to ten years?

It is always the role of the library to provide organized information and access to that information. I see the library as providing the collection, even if it's a digitized collection, and providing ways to access all the digitized materials. Libraries need to go beyond the institution, they must expand upon those basic principles and ideas to enable people to organize information. I also see librarians more involved in the tasks that people are attempting to accomplish and having a better understanding of the difficulty that people have in accomplishing those tasks with the information resources. I would see us building on our basic knowledge and traditions in organization and ethics of fields, in copyright and intellectual freedom- all those areas we developed. I see those expanding because all of those are basic issues in our society today. I see librarianship moving to help people do creative and innovative work and use information effectively in their lives.