User

The concept of the user in Library and Information Science (LIS) is related to the concept of audience in media studies. Users may also be termed "readers", "borrowers", "clients" or "customers". Each of those terms have a somewhat different connotation. The purpose of a library or an information system is of course in some way to help solving some problems for or through actual or potential users.

A distinction is made between, for example, the librarian as a user of a database on the one hand, and on the other hand the final user (e.g. a researcher). In order not to confuse these two kinds of users, the first kind is termed the intermediary, while the second kind is termed "end-user".

LIS has been interested in users in different ways, for example the different kinds of barriers in the utilization of information systems. Such barriers may be technical, psychological, social or economic. A specific field: Human-computer-Interaction and Ergonomics) is studying cognitive issues related to information systems design. 

Anderson & Pérez-Carballo describe an old controversy within LIS concerning the role of the users:

"In librarianship, there is a long, and sometimes controversial tradition, of providing to our users what they should be using, rather than what they ask for. A growing consensus seems to be swinging in the other direction. That the user is the best judge of what is useful, beneficial, and to be desired. . . .As in many controversies, both sides have some merit. The opinions and desires and information seeking behavior of users must be respected. But in addition, in some cases, expert librarians and other information specialists are indeed equipped to make judgments of importance, and they should be encouraged to do just that on behalf of users. . . .This avoidance is unfortunate and should stop. It is one area where human indexing can be clearly superior to machine indexing" (Anderson & Pérez-Carballo, 2001b, p. 273).

Different approaches to LIS tend to conceptualize "user" in different ways, if at all. Often is the underlying conceptualization implicit. W. Boyd Rayward writes:

"In contemporary systems of information retrieval, the user - an abstraction not easy to interpret - is placed, at least by rhetorical convention, at the center of the systems. Some guiding notion of the user and his or her information needs and behavior has provided a fundamental point of reference for system development . . . It has been so from the days of primitive library use surveys and studies of information needs to the current interest in the "cognitive approach" to information system design based on models of cognitive structures and processes (e.g. Belkin, 1990; de May 1980; Ellis 1991, 1992). Otlet, however, displayed little or no interests in the user, other than in an extremely generalized sense....." (Rayward, 1994, p. 246).

Today there is a growing tendency to regard the earlier, more individualistic, conception of "user" as problematic and to replace it with a conception of the user as a social actor:

"A concept of the user is fundamental to much of the research and practice of information systems design, development, and evaluation. User-centered information studies have relied on individualistic cognitive models to carefully examine the criteria that influence the selection of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that people make. In many ways, these studies have improved our understanding of how a good information resource fits the people who use it. However, research approaches based on an individualistic user concept are limited.

    In this paper, we examine the theoretical constructs that shape this user concept and contrast these with alternative views that help to reconceptualize the user as a social actor. Despite pervasive ICT use, social actors are not primarily users of ICTs. Most people who use ICT applications utilize multiple applications, in various roles, and as part of their efforts to produce goods and services while interacting with a variety of other people, and often in multiple social contexts. Moreover, the socially thin user construct limits our understanding of information selection, manipulation, communication, and exchange within complex social contexts. Using analyses from a recent study of online information service use, we develop an institutionalist concept of a social actor whose everyday interactions are infused with ICT use. We then encourage a shift from the user concept to a concept of the social actor in IS research. We suggest that such a shift will sharpen perceptions of how organizational contexts shape ICT-related practices, and at the same time will help researchers more accurately portray the complex and multiple roles that people fulfill while adopting, adapting, and using information systems." (Lamb & Kling, 2003, p. 197).

A similar view has been expressed by Sanna Talja:

"It is widely recognized that both individual information needs and institutional information access are socially conditioned. However, conducting information seeking research on a macrosociological level has turned out to be difficult within the cognitive viewpoint, since it is basically a theory of how individuals process information. The cognitive viewpoint offers no concrete and obvious solutions to the question of how to conceptualize and study the socio-cultural context of information processes. " (Talja, 1997). 

One way to conceptualize users is to distinction between different kinds of knowledge-levels, e.g. between subject knowledge and information literacy, between experts and novices, or between different levels of education. Textbooks, for example, are designed in order to mediate knowledge to users with more or less well defined presuppositions. This is an example of how knowledge and information may be mediated to users based on a categorization of users.

Literature:

Anderson, J. D. & Pérez-Carballo, J. (2001a). The nature of indexing: How humans and machines analyze messages and texts for retrieval. Part I: Research, and the nature of human indexing. Information Processing & Management, 37(2), 231-254.

Anderson, J. D. & Pérez-Carballo, J. (2001b). The nature of indexing: How humans and machines analyze messages and texts for retrieval. Part II: Machine indexing, and the allocation of human versus machine effort. Information Processing & Management, 37(2), 255-277.

 
Hedemark, A.; Hedman J. & Sundin, O. (2005). Speaking of users: on user discourses in the field of public libraries. Information Research, 10(2) paper 218  Available at 

http://informationr.net/ir/10-2/paper218.html

Hjørland, B. (1993). Emnerepræsentation og informationssøgning. Bidrag til en teori på kundskabsteoretisk grundlag. Göteborg: Valfrid.

Lamb, R. & Kling, R. (2003). Reconceptualizing users as social actors in information systems research. MIS Quarterly, 27(2), 197-235. Available at: http://www.misq.org/archivist/bestpaper/Lamb.pdf

Oudshoorn, N. & Pinch, T. (Eds.). (2003/2005). How users matter: the co-construction of users and technology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MITT Press. (Paperback edition 2005).

"Users have become an integral part of technology studies. The essays in this volume look at the creative capacity of users to shape technology in all phases, from design to implementation. Using a variety of theoretical approaches, including a feminist focus on users and use (in place of the traditional emphasis on men and machines), concepts from semiotics, and the cultural studies view of consumption as a cultural activity, these essays examine what users do with technology and, in turn, what technology does to users. The contributors consider how users consume, modify, domesticate, design, reconfigure, and resist technological development--and how users are defined and transformed by technology. The book first shows how resistance to and non-use of a technology can be a crucial factor in the eventual modification and improvement of that technology, then looks at advocacy groups and the many kinds of users they represent, particularly in the context of health care and clinical testing. Finally, it examines the role of users in different phases of the design, testing, and selling of technology. Included here is an enlightening account of one company's design process for men's and women's shavers, which resulted in a "Ladyshave" for users assumed to be technophobes". (Editorial review)

Rayward, W. B. (1994). Visions of Xanadu: Paul Otlet (1868-1944) and Hypertext. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 45(4), 235-250.

Soergel, D. (1976). Is User Satisfaction a Hobgoblin? Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 256-259. Available at:  http://www.dsoergel.com/cv/B17.pdf

Talja, S (1997): Constituting "information" and "user" as research objects. A theory of knowledge formations as an alternative to the information man -theory. In: Vakkari, P., Savolainen, R. & Dervin, B. (eds.) Information Seeking in Context . London : Taylor Graham. 67-80. Available at:  http://www.uta.fi/~lisaka/ConstitutingFTP.htm

Woodward, J. (2005). Creating the customer-driven library: building on the bookstore model. Chicago : American Library Association.

See also: Audience; Commercialization; Enduser; Mediating/Intermediating; Paternalism; User modeling;

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 18-09-2006

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to be edited:

The meanings of the phrase “user centered” as one or more approaches in Library and Information Science 

1. Development from professional IT-users to non-professional
2. The Thatcher ideology: Public services at market conditions
3. Graphical Interface displays
4. The methodology of usability testing
5. Users as “warrant”

Brugeres forventninger og krav til et informationssystem kan være mere eller mindre realistiske og velbegrundede. Brugerens opfattelse af sit problem - og dermed også af sit informationsbehov - kan være mere eller mindre "subjektivt" eller "objektivt", ligesom brugerens opfattelse af biblio­teker/infor­mationssystemer og af den foreliggende viden kan være mere eller mindre "objektiv". Endelig kan brugere have forskellige former for barrierer, f.eks. sprogbarrierer, psykologiske barrierer i forhold til systemet. Disse forhold behandles i littera­turen bl.a. under kategorien "brugerunder­søgelser".

 

Nogle tilgange, f.eks. Ranganathan's teori og "det systemdrevne paradigme" ser viden som noget objektivt og har ingen eksplicit relation til brugeren. Andre tilgange (f.eks. det brugerorienterede paradigme og the cognitive view) ser viden som noget subjektivt, og bygger derfor på studier af brugernes subjektive opfattelse eller deres mentale modeller. Endelig se det domæneteoretiske paradigme såvel viden som brugere som gensidigt betingede historiske udviklingsprodukter (Jfr. Hjørland, 1993).