I loved this quote from Dave Young when I first found it, and I love it more now:

Talk to the customer in the language of the customer about what matters to the customer. Bad advertising is about you, your company, your product or your service. Good advertising is about the customer, and how your product or service will change their world.

Read that again, but replace the relevant bits with “user” or “patron” and “your library” or “your databases.”

The point of all this in a post from Jessamyn about understanding what users understand.

Part of the problem is that the information landscape and our behaviors — well, our users’ behaviors anyway — have changed faster than our systems and services. That is, the value of the library is distributed among our catalogs, institutional repositories, digital archives, many dozens of databases, and thousands of ejournals. We struggle for ways to differentiate between them when all our patrons really want is “information.”

My friend Joe wrote:

Younger people, naturally, find all of this equivocating silly. They know where they are going to look for information, and it sure as heck isn’t the library — at least not the library as it currently exists. In a healthy way, perhaps, they don’t make distinctions about information. They use it, then move on.

I doubt there are many who praise the complexity, the dis-integration of our online services. Yet because of limitations of our technology and, perhaps, just the enormity of the task, these problems persist.

That’s why I like John Kupersmith’s pages of “library terms that users understand,” where you’ll find a quick guide to usability tested terms and other goodies. Because, yes, one of the biggest problems we face has nothing to do with the technology.

communication design, customer, dave young, future libraries, john kupersmith, language, lib20, libraries, library, library 2.0, targeting, taxonomy, terminology, user expectations, user knowledge

Related:

• Library Camp East 2006
• Free Markets, Bad Products, Slow Change Rates
• The ALA/NO Events I’d Like To See
• Questions Are All Around Us
• Standards Cage Match

Posted March 21, 2006 by Casey
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: communication design, customer, dave young, future libraries, john kupersmith, language, lib20, libraries, library, library 2.0, targeting, taxonomy, terminology, user expectations, user knowledge.

7 Comments

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

 

User contributed tags for this post:

arab sex (824) - arabic sex (793) - arabic sexs (735) - arabian sex (494) - arabic sex stories (390) - arab sex stories (315) - arab sex com (193) - yes arab (190) - sex arabic (180) - arabic sex movies (146) - asin online com (141) - arabic sex story (105) - arab sex story (104) - arabs sex (102) - 135522 (98) - arabian sex movies (94) - arabic girl (82) - arab girl video (76) - 44391 (74) - ArabSex6 (66) - sex arab (64) - arab sex video (64) - sex stories in arabic (57) - young girlsex (55) - arabian sex stories (53) - yung sex (52) - arab girls photos (49) - arabic sex stories in arabic language (44) - arab sex arabian (43) - mss (42) - arab sex movies (41) - arab sexs (41) - animal sex com (37) - arabian sex films (34) - arab yes (34) - arabic sex storys (34) - arab sex posts (32) - arabsex (31) - arab girl (30) - arab girls sex (30) - arabsexstories (29) - asin sex (27) - asin sex com (24) - 168681 (23) - arabic sex movie (23) - arabic girls sex (23) - sex in arabic (23) - digital arab sex (23) - gogle language (23) - 157582 (22) - arabic animal sex (22) - yes arab sex (21) - arabs sex movies (21) - mototools 6 (21) - arab girls emails (20) - arab girlsex com (20) - arabic sex com (19) - www.shosar.com (18) - sex stories arabic (18) - WWW ASIN ONLINE COM (18) - about (17) - site:maisonbisson com yahoo vadio (17) - all (17) - arabic sex online com (17) - Sex Arabic stories (17) - sex 4 arab (17) - arabia sex girl young (16) - arabssex (16) - sex in arabic language (16) - sex stories arab (16) - arabic sex films (15) - yes arabic (14) - arabic language sex story (14) - cache J9 oyToGEXcJ maisonbisson com blog post 11213 ara (14) - arabic sex story query (14) - arabic girl sex (14) - time passing quote (14) - sexs stories (14) - sex langue arab (13) - sex arab girl (13) - arab sex moves (12) - www.arab sex.com (12) - www.sex arab.com (12) - arabssex com (12) - 106117 (12) - sex arabian (12) - young girlsex com (12) - my language (11) - 69476 (11) - Sex story in Arabic (11) - cache EGoUbK2qAMsJ maisonbisson com blog post 11213 spe (10) - arabic girls (10) - Sexs Arab (10) - arabic sex.com (9) - arabic sexy story (9) - sex with arab girls (9) - sex stories in arabic language (9) - young sexs (9) - sex story in arabic language (9) - sex for arab (9) - yes arab com (8) - shosar stories (8) - speaking my language (8) - www shosar com (8) - shosar.com animai sex (8) - arabic sextube (8) - young arab sex (8) - 6005287009739 (8) - arabic language sex stories (8) - gogle arabic (8) - young sex com (8) - shosar com arab (8) - arabicsex online (8) - group/arabsex6 (8) - Arabic Sex Online (8) - sex from arabic (7) - young arabian sex (7) - 167087 (7) - young pussy com (7) - sexy stories in arabic (7) - www.yes arab.com (7) - sex 6 arabk (7) - arab sex move (7) - yes arabs (7) - kupersmith (7) - you are speaking my language video (7) - arbic sex (6) - arabicsex online com (6) - 155338 (6) - cache J9 oyToGEXcJ maisonbisson com blog post 11213 sex (6) - sex (6) - sex 24 arabic (6) - 159719 (6) - sex stories in the arabic language (6) - my (6) - sex arab stories (6) - video sex arabic (6) - CA (6) - arabicsex (6) - shosar.com animal sex (6) - sexs arabic (5) - young girlsex.com (5) - arbic sex stories (5) - sexs arabs (5) - asin sex video (5) - sex arab story (5) - g rls (5) - yesarab com (5) - sex arabic video (5) - arabic sexmovies (5) -