Our participants’ expectations of using technology for information seeking tended to be influenced more by the web than by the services provided by libraries. The phrase, 'think less – find more,' is a satirical comment on the concept that Google is ‘selling’ with its approach to search. Web-based search engines have moved from traditional Boolean functionality to natural language queries and Google is now attempting to answer users’ questions before they are asked by analysing data from a plethora of sources to model life-patterns.
This is less the case in a learning or research context, however, there is an indication that some learners implicitly view the role of technology as the means by which they receive a ‘correct’ answer. This was evidenced in the responses to a ‘magic-wand’ question which participants often responded to by describing the ‘perfect’ search engine. This is an imagined single search box which only ever returns the ideal answer:
"Perfect thing, I think it would be that all the useful, accurate, reliable information would like glow a different colour or something so I could tell without wasting my time going through all of them, thinking ‘Oh no, that’s not useful, that’s not useful,’ actually like all the information that I need and could actually use would be somehow highlighted…"
UK, emerging female, age 17
What is traditionally thought of as ‘research’ is actually seen by some as an inconvenient time-consuming task that has to be done because the technology doesn’t work well enough yet. Barbara Fister discussed this at length in her decoding academy talk at LOEX 2013, noting the results of the ongoing work of Howard and Jamieson’s Citation Project, which reveal the student tendency to ‘patchwrite’, to string quotes – generally found in online resources – together rather than come up with an argument, or analysis (Fister, 2013; The Citation Project).
"No need to search out and read any sources at all. Perhaps more dispiritingly, the video shows how a student with dreams and an urge to create something meaningful is finally able to do that – once he has completed that tiresome paper."
This phenomenon has implications for both services and pedagogical process and highlights one of the fundamental principles at stake for education in the context of the web:
"The problem with Wikipedia is it’s too easy. You can go to Wikipedia, you can get an answer, you don’t actually learn anything, you just get an answer."
Tutor – via USA, emerging male, age 28
The implication for many services is that if what you provide differs in its functionality from web-based paradigms it is essential that the benefit of your service’s approach is clearly articulated. Perceived value is now often contextualised relative to the web.