First Weekend LI802

Theoretical Foundations of Service: Diagnosis and Customization.

For the record, I rarely remember the names of the classes I take. I remember the content, and the people, but not the complex names. For me this class is 802. This class is about how people seek information from a cognitive and cultural perspective; I'm hoping the lessons will go hand in hand with some of the cognitive science classes I've taken for my CompLing MA.

non-human intermediaries: exactly what we discussed in 840. It's information architecture; providing effective information services and easily accessible resources to humans through computers.

information seeking behavior/information use behavior: how people seek and use information.

diagnosis: process of assessment/examination of a condition to determine needsand responsive solution

customization: design and construction of a service to suit an individual's or group's needs based on their specifications.

system-centered: prior to the 1960s, the librarian was the Keeper of Information. In a system-centered approach, the research focused on the library (i.e., how many people came there, how often, and for how long).

user-centered: the research focuses on how people seek and use information (notice the removal of focus on the library).

We apply a user-centered and interdisciplinary approach in LIS.

A note on social linguistics: linguistics is my *other* MA, so I was pretty pleased when the professor started talking about research she'd read on social linguistics. Social linguistics in big now, especially in the way of conversation analysis. The bond between culture, language, and cognition is huge in research in many fields (psychology, speech language and hearing sciences, artificial intelligence, linguistics, computer science...). Also big right now (and usually the topic I pick when I have to do a conversation analysis project) is language and technology--how texting, emailing, and IMing has affected language. One of the most interesting facets of texting analysis is the invention and use of emoticons--the little smilies and faces that convey emotion when we don't have a facial expression or vocal tone to accompany our words. ;)

And a funny story on GPS devices (the professor mentioned GPS devices as a major change in information exchange): I don't own one. However, a lot of people do, and a lot of things are now getting defined in terms of coordinate location. This affects me because the nerds on World of Warcraft have invented a GPS coordinate system for the game. So when you're looking for something, you go online and find, "Oh yeah, thats in Winterspring area at XX, YY." And it's really annoying because I do not have this game app installed, so whatever coordinates are given do not help me. I need directions such as "go southwest from the major town and look for a cave..."

My story on the importance of information: My first semester of graduate school, I also got married and bought a HUD house. The house was missing windows, had holes in the walls and doors, needed repairs to the heating system, and needed all of the floors and major appliances replaced. Before we did any of this, we got internet. Literally. I was without floors, heat, laundry services, fridge, oven, dishwasher, home security, and privacy, and all I wanted was my access to world information. We had it before we even moved all of our furniture in, because there was no way I could turn in my assignments without it (...and this program wasn't even internet based).