Reflection on the Principle of Least Effort
In the field of information organization, three interconnected theories determine how successfully people will access information. Mann’s “Principle of Least Effort” defines the psychological aspect of information seeking while Svenonius’ “Bibliographic Objectives” describes the information system and “how” things work. Finally, Bates’ “Invisible Substrate” proposes an implicit design within the system and “what” constitutes best practice.
According to Mann, people want to find needed information quickly while expending the least possible amount of effort to get results. His principle of least effort is the information science equivalent of fast food, whereby people accept convenience and sacrifice quality in their information-seeking behavior. Mann cites numerous studies about information seeking across government, medicine, education, and industry which all revealed ease of access to supersede authoritative findings. Although a widely-accepted phenomenon in everyday life, this approach is inherently problematic: it does not necessarily yield the highest quality or most accurate information. However, Mann suggests this method is not always due to laziness, but a consequence of the failure of information systems’ design and librarians’ unwillingness to account for human behavior. He argues that “disregarding the Principle of Least Effort is itself a result of the same principle at work” (98). Mann concludes that effective, independent information seeking is impossible if the “gameboard” of information is not easily accessed by all users.
Ideally, Svenonius’ bibliographic objectives should counterbalance the principle of least effort and provide a reliable system for information seekers. Yet, the finding, collocating, choice, acquisition, and navigation objectives are open-ended, both spawning and compounding the principle of least effort. She asserts that bibliographic objectives were more effective prior to the digital transition in libraries, when search criteria was limited and centered upon the traditional format of author, title, and subject. Now, “access to records in an online catalog is limited only by what is not described” (23). Since bibliographic objectives are unrestricted and sometimes not combined into a full-featured search system, precision in retrieving relevant information has greatly diminished. Svenonius points out that the lack of precision coinciding with online catalogs has produced a frustrating mixture of innumerable and irrelevant results.
A symbiotic relationship exists between Mann’s principle of least effort and Svenonius’ bibliographic objectives. If limited time exists to obtain reliable information, then information seekers should be able to locate precise records through the objectives. For example, even though someone might have low-level search knowledge, the finding objective should provide relevant results out of the infinite possibilities and the collocating objective should consolidate the highest-quality, maximum results. From a technical perspective, bibliographic objectives should improve information organization and retrieval, but they cannot address all of the problems surrounding principle of least effort.
Bates contends that information seekers, despite advanced education, ignore the “invisible substrate” which allows them to retrieve information. Therefore, bibliographic objectives remain hidden within the larger system and people default to principle of least effort searches. To nullify principle of least effort, Bates proposes that professional librarians are necessary to help people efficiently find information. Yet, librarians’ value is not correlated to subject area mastery, such as history or engineering; instead, librarians have to understand how information is represented in databases and catalogs across disciplines and especially how people interact with information. Bates stresses that librarians should have “technological and sociopyschological understanding to produce the best information retrieval system result” (1049). In order to achieve expedient and successful searches, librarians must employ the bibliographic objectives as well as integrate the human factor of why people seek information, its relative worth to them, and how they intend to use their findings. Only then can information systems attempt to serve all users and their varied information needs.
Personally, I believe that principle of least effort should not be perceived as laziness. While it does not need to be ordained as the unavoidable norm, it is understandable given the almost overwhelming amount of information presently available. I was interested to learn that Mann’s principle is implemented across socioeconomic lines and adopted by people of all ages. In certain situations, I think principle of least effort could have very harmful effects, such as in criminal justice, medicine, or diplomacy. However, principle of least effort does not really account for the expertise that librarians offer, instead emphasizing a more individual search for information. Librarians could help people find more material or better data if their role shifted from gatekeeper of and guide to information to being an expert fireman/woman, showing people how to aim and control the hose of information.
southernscholastic 