Information Overload

When Marriott Library first subscribed to the SFX service five, perhaps six, years ago, I remember thinking we’d finally eliminated our patrons' frustration with discovering an article citation in a database that didn’t provide access to the corresponding article. Now, by clicking on the "Check SFX for Full Text" link in an article database, one can quickly determine if an article is available electronically through one of the other databases we subscribe to or if it's in a print edition owned by the library.

But thanks to 2011 changes to the library catalog, now called USearch, we’re once again pointing patrons to a broader range of information objects that exist--books, articles, images, streaming media, and more--but which may not be available (or we may not be allowed to provide, due to copyright restrictions) at the University of Utah. And there are evermore options for this type of discovery: WorldCat, GoogleScholar, GoogleBooks, HathiTrust Digital Library, and even Pinterest!

To paraphrase the song, I think we need to start accentuating the positive and minimizing the negative. One way we can do this is to teach library patrons about all those discovery tools while simultaneously promoting the various points of access the University of Utah offers to them: off-campus access (for article databases, e-books, e-journals, and electronic reserves), Pull Service for ARC and General Collection materials, ILL and Document Delivery, UALC reciprocal borrowing, Suggest-a-purchase, Media Streaming, (and many more) in addition to the old-fashioned finding materials physically on the shelf! 

The challenge, though, is how to communicate all the possible combinations of these options in a way that helps patrons' find what they're looking for without overwhelming them.  My initial thought is to create an infographic like this Venn diagram or this flowchart or this decision tree that compares the types of information and content each tool provides and how they interface with those points of access.

What do you think? Are you nostagically longing for the dark ages when you only knew what was available through the library's card catalog and print indexes? Do you pull your hair out trying to figure out how to get your hands on a limited-edition book owned by a small library in Bangalore? Or do you blissfully click link-after-link-after-link, simply rejoicing in the vast quantities of information at your fingertips?