Evaluating digital libraries in the context of learning and teaching
Authors: Jacobson Frances F. , Ignacio Emily 
Published: June 2007

Our research interests have to do with the cognitive processes that occur when children and young adults use information retrieval systems that allow much more control over the searching environment than do traditionally constructed bibliographic information retrieval systems. We are especially curious about what kind of connection there might be between the search process itself and learning. There is great potential to digital library environments to engender entirely new models of the ways in which information is selected and manipulated by learners. For example, with programming environments like HTML, learners have the opportunity not only to search for information, but also to create and disseminate information using the same medium. We believe that such capacity adds significant dimension and new meaning to the concept of information retrieval.The information science literature contains extensive documentation of the kinds of failures that occur when children and other novice users attempt to retrieve information using traditionally designed formal retrieval tools, both automated and non-automated. Interface design typically has been tightly linked to the formal structure of bibliographic databases. Users must be brought to engage directly with those structures in order to produce successful searches. While the construction of bibliographic systems provides the flexibility and manageability needed by experts (i.e., librarians), young users often experience great difficulty in converting their natural language queries into viable search strategies.On the other hand, the Internet (as an example of an informal information retrieval system) is the librarian's nightmare in terms of the lack of control over searching rules and expectations. "Traditional" Internet searching tools (e.g., Gopher, Veronica, Archie), are rather loosely constructed, reflecting the nature of the greatly disparate and ever-evolving resources of the Internet. Gopher menus, for example, contain whatever terms developers choose to include and no two gopher servers are constructed in the same way, even if they connect users to identical resources.User guides and local finding tools are inherently ephemeral, as they can only be as reliable as the moving target of the Internet allows them to be. On the other hand, Internet browsers enable the user to have greater control of search pathways and to develop hyperlinks across information sources in a way that has not previously been possible. Users do not need to know which technical operation they are evoking, be it FTP or telnet. Internet browsers also allow users to become information providers and producers. Digital libraries present the next radical stage in altering traditional approaches to information retrieval and manipulation.We are also interested in observing how teachers and librarians go about teaching students to find information on rapidly changing systems. Almost by definition, instructors are in the position of learning while they teach. In contrast, formal bibliographic information retrieval systems don't undergo significant structural change within short periods of time. In addition, there are a number of factors that might make teachers wary of using the Internet as an information gathering tool (e.g., credibility and authority issues, the lack of assumptions that can be made about commonly used types of publications, the "permanency" of paper, etc.). Do teachers find ways of overcoming or managing these concerns? For example, do they tell students to search Readers' Guide first to get "real" articles and then search the Net for interesting quotes? Do they ask students to post their questions on bulletin boards first in case someone in cyberspace can either provide answers or else tell them where to search?