“studying Digital Library Users

A technical system may be viewed as a locus of knowledge production. Knowledge grows through the design process, as the designer constructs new solutions to problems. Donald Schon (1983, 1990) describes a conversation between the designer and the materials of design, an interaction in which the designer makes a move – either with the actual artifact or with a sketch or other representation of it – and the artifact “talks back,” providing the designer with new information about actions and outcomes, which then shape future moves. Knowledge also grows as features of the new system are communicated to the designer’s professional community and becomes a part of the general knowledge base. Users may use a technical system explicitly to find information, and in the process not only add to their own personal knowledge, but find unexpected ways to use the system, which may then be communicated to other users. All such newly created knowledge moves, to a greater or lesser extent, out of the original situation and into new situations where it is accepted, modified, or rejected through additional interactions between people, things, and surrounding situations.