Section Four

4.1 Dervin, B. (1992). From the Mind's Eye of the User: The Sense-Making Qualitative Methodology. In J. D. Glazier & R. R. Powell (Eds.), Qualitative research in information management (pp. 61-84).

Brenda Dervin presents a user-centered model focusing on the user's ability to make sense of the information they find. It contrasts other user-focused models by incorporating how the user is able to utilize the information they find. It focuses on the information gap a user finds and the means the user takes to build a bridge and get across the gap. This approach combines qualitative and quantitative research methods to best serve the user. Dervin provides several exemplars to document exactly how the sense-making approach is employed in realistic situations.

I felt the exemplars provided in the study were very realistic. A lot of the literature I read has focused on helping users in a professional or scholastic setting, but a large percentage of users have questions regarding things in a casual atmosphere like those Dervin used in her study. Each example showed a different user and describes the gaps associated with each problem on a situation-specific basis. For example, the first example showcases a young mother contemplating going back to school and the second exemplar depicts a nervous blood donor. While these are very specific cases that I most likely will not encounter in the elementary school setting, I found the step-by-step questioning process that breaks down this model for each example to be personal. That each user had a distinct problem unique to the other users made this approach realistic. Even though the children I will be working with will be within the same school, learning relatively the same things, every one of my future students will have different home lives, friends, learning styles and so on. The more I am able to apply a model that works to aid unique information situations, the better librarian I will become.

Another aspect of this model that I find very easy to access is the heavy importance placed upon the context of the user and the user's information need. What may be helpful in one instance is not helpful in another. Someone browsing the internet for romantic honeymoon locations when the wedding is four months away has a lot more options than the same person looking for locations four days before the wedding because a hypothetical hurricane destroyed the first destination. The person and the wedding have stayed the same, but the timing has shifted, making the search more urgent and the user is more likely to just select something than he or she was four months prior. Also, the emotional situation of the user has shifted as he or she might misread the act of nature to be an omen upon their future married life. These factors are very important to the situation and if librarians are able to ferret out even a slice of the time-space context of the user, then they are better able to serve the user.