Discovery vs Serendipity

I found the responses to "How far should we go with ‘full library discovery’?" from several of my fellow students to be quite interesting.  I noticed that MetaWhat!Data! allowed for the idea that others might find full library discovery to be overload, but she herself liked the idea of "going further down the rabbit hole of discovery." I'm always interested in what people would like more of in their library systems, so I wish she would have actually elaborated a bit more on that.  JPow, on the other hand, decided to test different systems and report on the differences, always a useful exercise. I enjoyed his fresh perspective and choice to concentrate on pre-filtering capabilities.  I wonder what sort of user studies these systems may (or may not) have regarding whether or not the typical user prefers to refine up-front or after receiving results.  MadamLibrarian  makes an excellent point about the importance of transparency in discovery and making it clear what isn't being searched. How does a library assess the opportunity cost of a discovery system.  MetaDamen brought up very good objections to the use of peer data and previous searches, and Adam raised an important issue regarding next-gen search capabilities and the need for both strict disclosure and an opt-out feature.

Finally, there was much discussion about serendipity and the importance of maintaining an active role in the research process.  This is the point where I will choose to be a bit of a contrarian and push back a little.  First, let's look at passivity versus mindfulness in the research process. I've worked reference shifts for years, both virtual reference and in-person, and my totally biased opinion is that the mindfulness of the research/writing/learning process really doesn't occur during the "source harvesting" stage, at least not for your average college student.  It doesn't matter whether we're talking about the old bound volumes of the Reader's Guide, its newer incarnation in Academic Search Complete, or the latest discovery system, that process involves hoovering up as many articles and books that seem to fit the topic, and winnowing them down later. There's plenty of mindfulness in choosing and narrowing that topic, and plenty later in the reading, synthesis, and writing, but the harvesting?  Not so much.  If the search isn't going well enough to "satisfice," there's always the helpful librarian ready to offer controlled vocabulary and search tips, at the teachable moment.  A better discovery system is like a better car in this case--you may spend less time looking at the scenery as you whiz past, but it was only the strip mall beside the interstate anyway, and you have more time to enjoy your destination.

But what about the serendipity?  Serendipity is such a romantic ideal.  But why is it that people wax all poetic over a random misshelving in the book stacks, but deny it in the case of a metadata error? Why can't an automated system provide serendipity in searching--indeed, why can't an automated system do a better job of offering it up?  In the classic print-only library, if you have a book about both cats and airplanes, you can only shelve it with the cat books or the airplane books, probably on completely separate floors, if not in separate branches.  Which set of users gets the serendipity, and which set misses out entirely?  On the other hand, if there's a book on cats and airplanes in the library, your discovery system can present it in the results whether you searched for cats or airplanes.  Some librarians go even further and suggest that serendipity in the stacks is a negative concept.  The Ubiquitous Librarian "would rather teach students to be good searchers instead of lucky ones." Donald Barclay compares browsing the stacks to "hitting the 3-day sales tables" and notes that discovery systems open a world of shared collections much better and more efficient than what any one library can house. Patrick Carr argues in "Serendipity in the Stacks: Libraries, Information Architecture, and the Problems of Accidental Discovery" that "from a perception-based standpoint, serendipity is problematic because it can encourage user-constructed meanings for libraries that are rooted in opposition to change rather than in users’ immediate and evolving information needs."  He suggests that libraries strive to develop "information architectures that align outcomes with user intentions and that invite users to see beyond traditional notions of libraries." Perhaps what is really needed is for libraries to repurpose the notion of serendipity and show users how to generate magical results with better searching techniques in better systems.