INL 230 theme 8

Services to the 21st century information user and the concepts of deeper learning

• Academic LIS – part of learning and learning support

• The 21st century information user: need emotional intelligence, students, grit,
perseverance, an intrinsic desire to learn, and the capacity to empathize with others
• Professor Michael Fullan defines these traits as deeper learning competencies and argues
that students need to develop 6Cs rather just the four. In addition to the 4Cs of 21st Century
Learning, he adds Citizenship and Character Development to the list.

Design for use

• Know your information user

• Know usability principles

• Monitor and test user experience

• Make use of specialist services

How to guides

• How to create them

• Updates

• Where to communicate them

• Using multimedia

• Using social media

• Visualization

Digital Humanities and digital story telling

• It is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or digital technologies and

the disciplines of the humanities.

• It includes the systematic use of digital resources in the humanities, as well as the analysis
of their application

• DH can be defined as new ways of doing scholarship that involve collaborative,

transdisciplinary, and computationally engaged research, teaching, and publishing

• It brings digital tools and methods to the study of the humanities with the recognition that
the printed word is no longer the main medium for knowledge production and distribution

IM, KM and storytelling

• Storytelling is the oldest technique of knowledge transfer and has been touted as the most
effective medium to pass across a message to someone since we tend to memorize stories
better than dry facts and can easily link them to our personal experiences

• Medical research and technologies proved that storytelling is a natural way for brain to
capture and retain information

The power of storytelling in a Knowledge Management framework - harnessing the tacit

knowledge of an organisation e.g. LIS

• Fostering collaboration – In an organisation people often come together as teams, groups,

communities. Using narrative techniques during these sessions help people collaborate
and learn from each other’s experiences as they have a context missing in the traditional
form of meetings.

• Transfer of tacit knowledge and understanding - Stories allow tacit knowledge to be

shared more easily as stories provide context and focus on issues relevant to the listener.
Storytelling allows a seamless leap from information to knowledge.

• Ideation leading to Innovation – Ideas pave the way for Innovation. Employees have hands
on experience with processes, clients, products, and customers. When they collaborate to
share their stories while collaborating formally or informally, they create a new paradigm by
introducing new ideas with potential for improvement and innovation.

Organic way of learning

• The wider purpose of any KM framework is to equip information users/employees with
knowledge for greater good

• Tacit knowledge from experienced infomediaries can be embedded in narratives to help

inexperienced information users learn

• Why stories work so well in knowledge management

Digital storytelling in science and academic libraries (Gowen, 2019)

• “Storytelling can be an essential tool to effectively reach a target audience with scientific
results. Through a story or a narrative, context is provided to the audience and complex
scientific data can be easier to understand and analyse”
• Multimedia communication can build information user’s communications skills and
content knowledge
• “At the intersection of digital multimedia technology and traditional storytelling
techniques is digital storytelling, which is well situated to allow students to explore their
voices as science communicators for the first time”.

ALA on digital story telling

Why engage in digital storytelling?

• Digital storytelling – as the broad definition suggests – can have many uses. It can take the
form of autobiographical reflections, curated interviews, documentaries, or any
combination of those
• Three general categories of practice that I call pedagogy, engagement, and communication.
They are not mutually exclusive

ALA on pedagogy and active learning

• Digital storytelling is a pedagogical tool - can draw on and generate new forms of literacy

• Information, visual, digital, experiential – and expand our understanding of what literacy
means in the 21st century

• It can be adapted to students at any level from K-12, to college, professionals, and lifelong
learners

• In the classroom and library, it can facilitate active learning as students learn to plan and
craft stories – like a research essay or creative writing assignment for the digital age

• Acquire content knowledge in a topic area, research skills (finding audio or images to
incorporate), and the technical expertise needed to put it all together

ALA on Communication

• For institutions, storytelling has proven useful as a marketing tool. It offers a means of
conveying a message

• For this reason it has proven popular among public health groups, businesses, and also
libraries.

• ALA’s own Libraries Transform campaign could be interpreted as a use of digital storytelling
• These types of storytelling campaigns are distinct from the form of engagement described
above because they represent top-down rather than bottom-up initiative.

ALA on engagement

• At its best, digital storytelling can serve as a powerful means of democratizing the record,
engaging people and communities whose voices might otherwise remain unheard.

• As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says, “How they are told, who tells them, when they're told,
how many stories are told, are really dependent on power.

• Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive
story of that person.”

• While publishing in the traditional sense has always required a certain degree of power and
access, the digital medium can return at least some of that power to the people to whom
the stories belong

• It can be a “tool for community building and communication, both internally and externally."

Risks and rewards

• Storytelling as a recent phenomenon is not without its critics

• Its focus on individuals – and particularly on short anecdotes with positive outcomes –
often sidelines structural critiques and underlying problems

• A story about how gentrification hurts communities may give a human voice to a larger issue
and evoke sympathy in viewers, but does it prompt change?

• Does decontextualizing the process from its history and its ties to racial and social
inequalities enable avoidance of those deeper issues?

• While the empowering and democratic intentions of storytelling’s proponents are no doubt
genuine, they can eclipse critical perspectives

• The stories created are not necessarily heard in a digital environment where influence can
be purchased, and stories of survival can overshadow the stories of those who are left
behind

Trends

• Current trends suggest the definition of digital storytelling has expanded over the course of
the last twenty years as it shifts from referring primarily to video to encompassing a variety
of mixed media formats

• In addition, the ‘digital’ modifier is increasingly omitted as its ubiquity renders it

unnecessary

• While digital storytelling remains a useful tool, we should recognize its limitations

• To reach its full potential, we should aim to create and share stories that ask difficult
questions and demand true thought and empathy

• Only then can we move beyond an emotional plea to the listener and into a springboard for
action
• In the words of Ursula Le Guin, the best storytellers “tell the same stories over and over
(how many stories are there?), but when they tell them they are new, they are news, they
renew us, they show us the world made new.”

7 Elements of digital story telling

1. Point of View (Peter)

What is the main point of the story and what is the perspective of the author?

2. Dramatic Question (dances)

A key question that keeps the viewer's attention and will be answered by the end of the story.

3. Emotional Content (energetically)

Serious issues that come alive in a personal and powerful way and connects the audience to
the story.

4. Gift of Your Voice (Genevieve)

A way to personalize the story to help the audience understand the context.

5. Power of the Soundtrack (proudly)

Music or other sounds that support and embellish the story.

6. Economy (encourages)
Using just enough content to tell the story without overloading the viewer.

7. Pacing (Peter)
The rhythm of the story and how slowly or quickly it progresses.

A case study of use in the library (Carsten, 2020)

• Digital storytelling is a multimedia process that usually involves pictures (still or moving),
text, music and a recorded narrative to tell a story.
• The stories can be for any age audience - focus on a story created for (and partially by)
children
• Digital stories are usually 2 to 10 minutes long; for young children, shorter is usually better.

The academic library

• While stories and storytelling are most commonly associated with public library
programming, the academic library also has an important role to play in the facilitation,
promotion, and propagation of digital storytelling

• As cultural and educational centers and repositories, academic libraries can serve their
institutions by getting involved in a variety of aspects of digital storytelling, from
programming and workshops to archiving

• In an academic setting, digital storytelling can be a powerful tool for enhancing

interdisciplinary collaborations and support active learning

Areas of application

• Library orientation
• Referencing workshops
• Plagiarism prevention
• Add to social media
• Electronic notice boards
• Departmental collaboration – the embedded librarian

Issues and challenges

• Skills

• Breaking with tradition

• Standards

• Avoidance behaviour

• Lack of pedagogy knowledge

• Requires continuous training and upskilling

• New developments – interactive digital storytelling

Infographics and the information user

• Infographics:
• “compelling visual formats that can be quickly comprehended and used for presenting
complex information”.
• This definition is consistent with other definitions that described Infographics as a visual
display of information that is difficult to understand in order to produce knowledge (Fadzil,
2018)
• Described Infographics as graphic work that bring together data visualizations, illustrations,
text, and images into a format that easy to understand and give information

Infographics versus dashboards

• Infographics include terms such as:

• Information Design, Cognitive Representation, Data Visualization, Mental Imagine,

Educational Drawing, Visual Communication, Multimedia Learning, Information
Architecture, Analysis Thinking

• Whereas: a dashboard is a visual display of data

• While it can be used in all kinds of different ways, its primary intention is to provide
information at-a-glance, such as annual financial report summaries

• A dashboard usually sits on its own page and receives information from a linked database
e.g. an organization’s knowledge data base

• In many cases it’s configurable, allowing you the ability to choose which data you want to
see and whether you want to include charts or graphs to visualize the numbers

• It can be interactive

Evaluation of Infographics

• Usefulness: The Infographics should be easy to understand, and has a clear purpose,
contains reliable data, and the viewer can learn from it
• Legibility: Effective Infographics is characterized by the consistency of colours in order to
not obstruct the process of reading; moreover, it should be characterized by clarity of the
size of the font and colors. Additionally, the title of the Infographics should reflect the
content
• Design: The design should reflect the purpose of the Infographics, the consistency of the
elements so as not to distract the reader; the space used should be reasonable and not
leave many spaces
• Aesthetics aspect: Should be easy-to-follow. Data and the overall design should be
organized in a way that attracts the viewer's attention

Five characteristics of Infographics

1. Clarity – is the message clearly and effectively communicated

2. The arrangement or hierarchy of elements/constructs – does it flow logically and

systematically

3. Accuracy – is it factual and correct?

4. Relevance – is it useful and meaningful for the intended user

5. Integrity

Types of infographics used in LIS

• Traditional posters and notices

• Interactive infographics

• Immersive infographics

• Video tutorials

• Social media – TikTok for libraries

Social media, TikTok and digital story telling

• TikTok is a social media platform in which users create and/or watch unique video content

• The videos are usually less than 15 seconds – 3 min

• The videos are usually set to a sound clip (usually a popular song or a clip from a popular
movie or tv show)

• Conveying short messages in humorous style

• Shared mostly via Smart devices

TikTok types and their usefulness to information users

• Dance Trends (the original TikTok video)

• Trending Challenges - many are funny, creative, and positive.)

• Humor (so many are truly hilarious on tiktok)

• Feel Good (lots of kitten videos….. and they’re all delightful)

• Satire/Social Criticism

• Social Justice Movements & Discourse

• Instructional/Educational (you can learn just about anything on TikTok)

• Advocacy, awareness, marketing (many authors and organisations are using tiktok …. its like
free-to-make commercials)

• Community – fandoms and communities grow

User studies use it for

• Tutorials

• Marketing

• Collection development

• Advocacy and awareness – library week, literacy day, world book day

• Community building and outreach

• Social justice

• Announcements

Copyright and digital story telling Apps

• Copyright protection in the digital age

• Important to remember the legal implications of actions taken on the platform

• However, by considering what material is subject to copyright protection, obtaining

permission to use protected material, and contacting an attorney about implicated legal
rights, many issues can be prevented

• Intellectual property rights - Intellectual Property team at BrownWinick

• Existing broad licensing agreements in place

Infringement can be direct or indirect

• TikTok has entered into licensing agreements with Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony
Music, and Warner Music Group which allow the songs created by artists associated with
those companies to be used on TikTok without the worry of infringement.

• SAMRO in south Africa

Usability testing for LIS services such as used to evaluate websites, blogs, infographics
etc.

• Website usability testing can help you pinpoint the drivers that bring people to your site. In
particular, moderated interviews can help you determine a current or potential visitor's
motivations and their goals for visiting your site.

• Key questions to ask via testing:

• What’s the main reason people visit your website?

 • What are they trying to achieve?

• What other websites might they visit before or instead of yours?

What stops people from completing a task?

• Usability testing can identify barriers that keep users from completing a task and,
subsequently, drive them away from your website:

• What, if anything, is stopping users from [action]?

• What can they not find on the page?

• Do they find the wording or navigation confusing?

What convinces your users to take action?

• User testing can also pinpoint the hooks that persuade users to take certain actions,
such as signing up for a newsletter or completing a purchase:

• What’s convincing them to [take action]?

• What did they like most about their experiences on your site?

Digital media and culture

➢ Thomas and Inkson (2003) identified the following basic characteristics that apply to any
culture:

• Culture is shared

• Culture is learned and enduring

• Culture is a powerful influence on behavior

• Culture is systematic and organized

• Culture is largely invisible and

• Culture may be “tight” or “loose.”

Digital storytelling, infographics and cultural intelligence (Waddle & Clariza. 2018)

• When used critically, the affordances of digital tools can enable teaching that is aligned with
the goals of critical information literacy and

• Can ultimately make information literacy instruction more effective, engaging, and
meaningful

• Digital tools can make underlying power structures and economies of information
production visible

• Critical teaching of digital tools can empower students as producers of information

resources

Heuristics and usability:

• Common uses for heuristics:

-Help with problem solving
 -They are a fast and accurate way to arrive at a conclusion
-Simplify complex and difficult questions
-Reduce mental effort needed to make decisions

The purpose of an information service web site as a service to information users

• The website is the reflective image of the library

• Website is an extension of the physical library and serves many of the same purposes

• The website should be well-designed and well-structured that will provide the required,
useful and adequate information for the academic information users

• Must consider the needs of the user and design around it

• Many information services have dedicated web developers

• Beyond providing information about libraries and library services, academic library web
sites provide access to online catalogues, electronic databases, subject resources, library
instruction/tutorials, and digital collections

Information service websites design: UX and usability

• Usability analysis of libraries website: libraries’ website is taking more attention to serving
primary sources of information for their users

• Library users depend on the library websites

• Library website needs to be evaluated periodically using well-established criteria for web
design, accessibility, arrangement

• Libraries with the help of web 2.0 applications such as RSS and SNS’s like Facebook twitter
etc. can help to promote the website

Essential elements

1. Clear navigation

• Use descriptive labels. Visitors shouldn’t have to guess what they’re clicking on.

• Avoid too many dropdown menus in your main navigation. They can make it more difficult
for visitors to find the right links.

• Avoid the temptation to include a link on the homepage to every page on your site.

• maximum of seven items or less.

• Include an easy-to-use, powerful search function

• Ensure you have a search box in prominent locations

• Link to library catalog so students can locate books, articles, databases, and other
materials

2. Monitoring and updates

• Colors: Perhaps you have some school colors that you’ll weave into your website design.
Keep these consistent so every page looks like it belongs to the site.
• Fonts: Again, consistency is key. Choose one or two easy to read fonts and stick with them.

• Mascot: If you have a school or library mascot, this image might feature throughout your
content.

• Images: Pictures can make your website come alive, but you obviously don’t want to overdo
it. Also, choose an image design and stick with it. Perhaps your images will be cartoons,
professional photographs, or more casual photographs that are taken by staff and students.
Of course, make sure you’re acting as a role model when it comes to copyright and Creative
Commons.

URL persistence and URL simplicity

• Create an easily remembered URL

• The URL should stay the same even if the library changes physical Web servers, hosting
services, Internet service providers, or page delivery applications

• Registering the domain, allowing a library to craft its own URL

• Once the library has registered a domain name, it can be used as its online identity
regardless of whether it hosts its own Web site, relies on its parent organization, or depends
on a commercial Web hosting service

• Once registration of a domain has lapsed, it may be difficult to get the name back, again
forcing an unwanted change of address

Avoid at all cost

• Web site should do all that it can to be attractive and interesting, some features interfere
with finding information quickly and easily.

• Some problematic features:

1. Flash animations. While Flash is gaining acceptance as an environment for delivering

graphically rich information, forcing visitors to load a Flash animation upon entering can be
quite a frustration for both frequent visitors and those who are just looking for a specific
piece of information.

2. Sound backgrounds. It is possible to specify sound clips as one of the background elements
of a Web page. This practice not only dramatically increases the load time for the page, but it
can also be disruptive. I can think of a number of times when I have been browsing through
library Web sites in a quiet setting, and had to scramble for the mute button or volume
control when I suddenly came across one of these sound-enriched pages.

3. Movement and special effects transitions. Specifying special transitions as your users load
Web pages from your site strikes me as a very unproductive feature. While seeing one page
fade out as another fades in may be cute the first time, it interferes with the ability to
navigate through the site quickly

4. Pop-ups
Add on services and platforms

• Lib guides: LibGuides are a content management and information sharing system designed
specifically for libraries
• The platform allows for easy navigation through and instruction on core and relevant
resources in a particular subject field, class, or assignment

• Ask a librarian

The difference between services and platforms

• Services – human element

• Platforms are tools used in libraries - often use external service providers e.g., SABINET etc.

• Librarians are becoming Infomediaries in apomediation

Traditional services

Examples of traditional library services for adults:

• Interlibrary loans

• Library orientations

• Exhibitions

• Homebound and mobile services

• Services for the Blind

• Reference service

• Auxiliary services

For children

• Story hours

• Holiday programmes

• Puppet shows

• Exhibitions

For students and academics

• Course packs and short loans

• Copyright management

• Inter Library Loans

• Information literacy workshops

• User profiles and SDI services

New services and platforms

• Digital libraries
• Digital commons

• Makerspaces

• Embedded library services

Changed information services:

User information interfaces (UI)

• The user interface (UI) refers to the layout of an application, usually digital and online
• The user-friendly design - how it looks and its overall style
• UI is primarily focused on the direct interaction the information user has with a computer,
website or product e.g UP library website

UX versus UI

• Two terms that are often used interchangeably, but actually mean very different things
• The difference between User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) is that UI refers to the
aesthetic elements by which people interact with a product, while UX is about the
experience a user has with a product or service
• UI focuses on visual interface elements such as typography, colors, menu bars, and more,
while UX focuses on the user and their journey through the product

The aim of UI

• The goal of UI is to make the user’s experience intuitive and effortless on their part to receive
the best possible outcome through engagement.
• UI includes visual elements on the interface such as buttons users click on, text they read,
images, sliders, entry fields, and the rest of the website design elements the user interacts
with.
• More importantly, they are all aspects of an interface that can evoke emotional connections
(cognition) with the information users

Types of UI’s

• Form-based user interface is a kind of user interface in which someone interacts with the
application by entering data or selecting one of several possible values.

• Graphical user interface is the most common user interface. It lets users engage with
electronic devices, such as computers and smartphones, through graphical icons and
audio indicators.

• Menu-driven user interface provides you with a range of options in the form of a list or
menu. An ATM is a perfect example of a menu-driven interface.

• Touch user interface enables the users’ sense of touch to activate computer-based
functions on the surface of a screen device, thereby adding a level of accessibility.

• Voice user interfaces are popularly identified as AI assistants, such as Apple’s Siri, Google
Assistant, and Amazon’s Alexa. They allow the user to interact using speech commands and
voice.

Usability and User-friendly systems and platforms

• Understanding information users is a primary goal for UI and UX planning and design

• Planning must be towards user-friendly and maximum usability

• User statistics, personas and analytic data (big data) can be used to understand user
seeking behaviour and how users interact with a platform or product

• Looking at real users and how the react interact most useful

• The more you watch people use your product, the more you understand the problems they
face.

• Useability:
System usability and system usefulness are interdependent properties of system interaction
which in combination, determine system satisfaction and usage

What is usability

• Usability is a component of user experience (UX) design. According to the Nielsen

Norman Group—a leader in the UX field—usability is the second level in user experience.
It comes after utility and before desirability and brand experience.
• After you’ve determined that your item can solve users’ problems, you must address its
usability.

Services and platforms must be evaluated and tested

• Effectiveness, efficiency, aesthetic appearance, terminology, navigation, and learnability are

key attributes of system usability, and relevance, reliability, and currency key attributes of
system usefulness
• There are shared aspects to several of these attributes, but each is also sufficiently unique
to preserve its respective validity
• They can be combined as part of a multi-method approach to system evaluation

A design’s usability depends on how well its features accommodate users’ needs and
contexts. It should contain these elements:

Information specialists are responsible for:

• Effectiveness—It supports users in completing actions accurately.

• Efficiency—Users can perform tasks quickly through the easiest process.

• Engagement—Users find it pleasant to use and appropriate for its industry/topic.

• Error Tolerance—It supports a range of user actions and only shows an error in genuine
erroneous situations. You achieve this by finding out the number, type and severity of
common errors users make, as well as how easily users can recover from those errors.

• Ease of Learning—New users can accomplish goals easily and even more easily on future
visits.

Why usability test:

1. Uncover problems
2. Discover opportunities
3. Learn about users
UI and UX in LIS services and platforms

• When they first encounter an interface, users should be able to find their way about easily
enough to achieve objectives without relying on outside/expert knowledge
• A design with high usability guides users through the easiest and least labor-intensive route
• So, you must leverage a deep understanding of the information users’ contexts
• To do that, you must accommodate their limitations, such as their environment,
likely distractions and cognitive load