[Sigia-l] card sorting: dealing with multiple placements

[Jonathan Broad]

Steven L. MacCall, Ph.D. wrote:

>Peace, everyone ...he'll never understand what the LIS profession is and is
>about until he becomes a member. He is so much an "other" however, that it's
>probably not going to happen even if he were to attempt the feat. We are
>thus left with this straw parody that he has constructed for demolition
>purposes.
>
I feel properly chided.  I don't know what it is about Derek R's straw 
people that draw me out of my studied lurkerhood.  Apologies.  I will 
soon recloak.

>
>That having been said, I do recommend reading a chapter from the 1986 (yes,
>from the 1980's!) ARIST entitled "Information Needs and Uses" by Brenda
>Dervin and Micheal Nilan (p 3-33) in which thoughtful and accessible
>criticism is made about how LIS practice and research was performed up until
>that time. This article contains the clarion call for "proper" user centered
>approaches for both LIS practitioners and researchers. The money quote
>describing the state of LIS research at that time:
>
>"System orientations generate the research, which in turn generates findings
>that reify system orientations."
>
Yes, that does sound familiar.  Dervin is a name I recall from my LIS 
studies, along with Marcia Bates and a few others, advocating UCD.  Much 
obliged.  The one thing this thread has done for me is make me want to 
go back and reread some of the articles on reference interviews I read 
for my MLIS, as I realized that my empathies with ethnomethodology are 
coming from reference experiences.

>btw, the research on spotting book thieves pre-dates the publication of this
>article!!  ;-)  Fortunately, it is hard has hell to steal a *link* to the
>online edition of a book!!!
>
Well, I stand corrected.  We are book sherrifs, after all. <g>

Jonathan