College and Research Libraries Learning the Library: Taxonomy of Skills and Errors Leon A. Jakobovits and Diane Nahl-Jakobovits A theoretical scheme classifies user behavior into three domains of library activity-affective, cognitive, and psychomotor-and into three levels of learning-orientation, interaction, and internalization. Examples are given of library skills and errors in each of nine major classes. Applications are suggested in the areas of library orientation and instruction, testing and diag- nostics, reference, signs, and guides. his paper presents a theory of user behavior that allows librar- ian to understand better what patrons feel, think and do when they use the library's resources and services. The theory's main feature is a classification scheme for cataloging the very large body of skills and errors that make up the activities of library users. Li- brarians will find the scheme helpful in a number of ways. Those responsible for signs and guides will learn the range of visual skills of users and the errors users may make. Staff concerned with circula- tion policy might consider how patrons comprehend new instructions. The prepa- ration of orientation programs, tours, bib- liographic instruction, and courses can in- corporate a classification of the skills to be acquired at different levels, as well as er- rors to be avoided. Consulting the taxonomy of skills and errors will facilitate the assessment of user needs and the testing of skills. Reference services can be designed to address spe- cific user difficulties. Finally, cataloging and administrative decisions can profit from a better understanding of the actions, thoughts, and feelings of library users. In fact, all librarians could benefit by having more organized information about user behavior and a common focus through which to view their respective roles in improving patrons' use and enjoy- . ment of the library. TAXONOMY OF USER BEHAVIOR Libraries are organized according to a classification scheme for books and other materials in the collection. There are many possible schemes for grouping categories of items. In our judgment it is a sign of the- oretical maturity . and sophistication in a profession when its practitioners come to a general agreement about a standard clas- sification scheme. Library science needs two kinds of clas- sification schemes: one for books and ma- terials, the other for user needs and be- haviors. Every librarian works with both types of schemes, one of which is explicit (e.g., the Dewey Decimal Classification and the Library of Congress Clal?sifica- tion) while the other is implicit or even un- conscious. For instance, reference collec- tions, services, and displays are accommodated to specific groups of pa- trons. To do this successfully, librarians must have access to certain information about the patrons, for example, their spe- cific information needs, interests, and ed- ucational or intellectual level. This infor- mation is ordered and evaluated by the librarians making decisions, the equiva- Leon A. Jakobovits is Professor of Psychology and Diane Nahl-Jakobovits conducts workshops in the Graduate School of Library Studies at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822. 203 204 College & Research Libraries lent of applying a personal classification scheme to user behavior. Our aim is to propose a classification scheme that will allow librarians to stan- dardize and render explicit their view of patrons' needs, skills, and errors. The tax- onomy makes use of concepts fruitfully developed in educational psychology, es- pecially the three taxonomies of educa- tional objectives: the cognitive domain, the affective domain, and the psychomo- tor domain. 1 DEFINING THE THREE DOMAINS Librarians are familiar with the concept of "major classes." Schemes for classify- ing educational objectives, goals, out- comes, or skills and errors consist of three major classes called domains of behavior. This is the result of a remarkable consen- sus throughout the history of psychology and philosophy that dates to the ancient civilizations of · the Hebrews and the Greeks. In this view, a human being has three parts: the soul, the mind, and the body. In the modern era this psychologi- cal trine has been described in great detail by Emanuel Swedenborg, using the con- cepts of the will, the understanding, and the actions. 2 Swedenborg defined the will as a tran- scendental organ containing the affec- tions, loves, predispositions, and striv- ings of an individual. The organ of understanding contains the mental pro- cesses whereby rational decisions are made, knowledges gathered, confirma- tions of truth or falsity established, and in which intelligence and wisdom develop. The actions of a person are carried out by the organs of the body in accordance with the thoughts and plans of the understand- ing and with the energy provided by the loves and purposes of the will. Contemporary psychology has retained this fundamental threefold organization of the person. This is reflected in its his- tory and in its tripartite professional mvi- sion into dynamic psychology, cognitive psychology, and behaviorism, which study discrete zones or domains of behav- ior. Dynamic psychology deals with affec- tive behavior: motivation and conflicts; feelings, character, and mood; emotional May1987 needs and inner attitudes; attractions and predispositions; the source of creativity and higher values. Cognitive psychology deals with mental problem-solving activi- ties: plans, opinions, and beliefs; reasons and moral justifications; knowledge and comprehension. Behaviorism deals with the psychomotor domain of physical and physiological behavior: movements, sen- sations, perceptions, and speech. Al- though each of the three subdivisions has its own focus and research methodology, psychologists agree that human behavior always involves these three aspects when considered outside an experimental con- text. THE DOMAINS OF USER BEHAVIOR Learning the library involves the acqui- sition of habits in all three domains of be- havior. In general, consider a patron or student who has a need for informatio!t as a result of an assigrtment, hobby, or per- sonal interest. "Having an information need" is classified as an affective behay- ior. "Knowing where and how to find in- formation'' is a cognitive behavior. ''Per- forming the physical steps" are behaviors in the psychomotor domain. In particular, consider a user who is looking through a periodical index and intentionally forces the eyes to run down the list of authors without skipping. "Persevering in an in- tention'' is an affective skill. ''Decoding the meaning of the content read and eval- uating its relevance" are cognitive skills: the user sees a name and decides to look it up. "Hand-eye coordination, postural ad- justments, and accuracy'' are psychomo- tor skills: the user writes down the refer- ence and resumes visual inspection of the index. Errors, too, are committed in all three domains. At the general level, one of our students reported that he had a friend ask the librarian a question because he was too intimidated to do it himself. This is an af- fective error, an "unwillingness to prac- tice library tasks." The same student spent quite a bit of time looking for books on psychology in the P section, and later, by happenstance, discovered that it is the BF section that contains books on psycho!- ~- ogy. This is a cognitive error, ''making an incorrect assumption about library dis- tinctions." This student also failed to write down the full reference of an article consulted, so that he had to return to the library; this is a psychomotor error: "not copying exactly.'' At this particular level, consider an individual who does not in- spect a call number fully (a psychomotor error) because he figures that he only needs the first two lines (a cognitive error) and does not have the patience to learn the meaning of call numbers (an affective er- ror). COMPLEXITY OF BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMIES ~ The taxonomies of educational objec- tives are arranged by their creators along a · continuum of progressive development, from simple to complex. This is basic to ~ educators since the curriculum steps must match the intellectual growth of the learn- ers. While a classification scheme can be ~ arbitrary, a taxonomy must have an em- pirical validity so as to adequately repre- . sent actual growth steps. 3 The categories of the LC Classification are made and unmade in accordance with the content of new books and materials. ~ The thought processes of the user are not directly relevant in the cataloger's deci- sion making about a particular book. By contrast, the categories of the taxonomy of ~ library skills are representative of user be- haviors and not of the characteristics of li- brary resources. ~ The affective taxonomy of educational objectives has five levels of complexity: re- ceiving or attending, responding, valu- ing, organizing, and being characterized. 4 ~ The cognitive domain of educational ob- jectives has six levels: knowledge, com- prehension, application, analysis, synthe- ~ sis, and evaluation. 5 The psychomotor domain has seven levels: perception, set, guided response, mechanism, complex overt response, adaptation, and origina- ~ tion. 6 The Pierce-Gray classification has six parallel levels for each domain. 7 Ac- cording to the scheme recently reported by Hubert Dreyfus and Stuart Dreyfus, ~ one progresses through five stages in be- coming an expert at a job or hobby: nov- Learning the Library 205 ice, advanced beginner, competence, pro- ficiency, expertise. 8 The Kohlberg scheme for classifying the development of moral behavior has been extensively used in em- pirical research. 9 Many others can be cited, as this has been an active research issue since the pioneering work of Jean Piaget. 10 DEFINING THREE LEVELS How many levels should there be and how should one decide? The creators of the affective and cognitive taxonomies of educational objectives found no satisfac- tory solution to this question and expect changes in the taxonomies to be made in the future. Our approach is to determine, on a theoretical basis, the minimum num- ber of levels possible. Once this is found, our scheme provides for any number of subdivisions within each level, thus ac- commodating the specific requirements of other schemes. Benjamin Bloom and collaborators sup- port the notion of levels as a process of · ''internalization'' or progressive deepen- ing process. 11 They cite the work of Her- bert Kelman on the types of social influ- ence that a person accepts from others. 12 · Three stages of increasing depth of influ- encing are specified: compliance ( obedi- ence from innocence or fear), identifica- tion (conformity from the desire to affiliate), and internalization (voluntary agreement from subjective freedom or personal choice). We shall draw upon these concepts to define three levels of li- brary learning: Level 1, orientation; Level 2, interaction; and Level 3, internaliza- tion. Levell. Orientation This is a stimulus-bound or concrete stage of library learning. A user is chal- lenged to get to know the library: to mem- orize locations, procedures, new vocabu- lary. Orientation is an adjustment stage in which the person must be willing to be in- fluenced by librarians, must have a desire to comply with instructions, and obey signs. The user goes through the motions of looking around, noticing and memoriz- ing, pushing buttons and pulling levers, and giving cursory examination to book 206 College & Research Libraries covers, inside pages, titles, names. These actions are accompanied by numerous verbalizations. Further, the prospective user must find some value and satisfaction in accomplishing the little tasks that make up the orientation or preparation phase of library learning. At this initial level the patron has few cognitive resources to comprehend the · full meaning of searching. When required to do a search for an assignment, students who are mostly active at this level (rather than at Level2) operate from their undisci- plined self-intelligence. Without an un- derstanding of the library as a system, they lack objectivity and use inappro- priate logic. They are unaware of re- sources, they do not consult guides, they make many guesses, they feel frustrated, they get angry, they complain, they feel alienated in the library environment, they speculate, fantasize, resist. Naturally, their effort is limited, spurious, incom- plete, and fraught with error. Level 2. Interaction A user's negative bias toward the library is automatic. Learning the library requires the reformation of one's thinking, there- ordering of one's values towards preci- sion, systematicity, and attention to per- ceptual and semantic details. This is achieved by giving up uninformed self- intelligence and adopting the librarian's way of thinking in accordance with the system's way of ordering things. The indi- vidual must want to identify with the li- brary by establishing a satisfying relation- ship with librarians, their services, and tools. To succeed, learners must adopt a positive bias toward the library, must trust the system, and believe in its efficacy and validity. They must derive satisfaction from their growing ability to think and act like a librarian or expert user. They must accept the new mode of thinking and ac- tively want to extend their library compe- tence. When learners are active at this interac- tion level, they can use complex informa- tion tools and have gained an objective understanding of the library's organiza- tion. They have a continuous desire to im- prove their search abilities and enjoy ex- May1987 ploring on their own initiative new tools and services the library has to offer. They find it worthwhile to spend time using the library. Level3. Internalization The focus at Level 1 is to know the li- brary; at Level 2 to believe the library; at ~ Level .3 to love the library. To operate at - Level2 there must be a reformation of the user's thinking, but to enter Level 3 the -,. user must acquire a still more internal rela- tionship to the library that can be charac- terized as moral and global. There is a feel- ~ ing of congruence with library values such as conservation, service, and lifelong learning. This is an active process of incor- porating the ways of the library into one's .... life. The user becomes a supporting pa- tron, promoting the goals and functions of the library in society, and appreciating the library's role in the preservation of ideas ~ and freedom. Users begin to cumulate their research experience, become knowl- edgeable in a field, recognize trends or ..... patterns, and while browsing and search- ing they begin to have correct intuitions about likely outcomes and workable direc- tions. There is enthusiasm and excitement at successes and discoveries and a desire to share them with others. The library sys- 9 tern spills over into other areas of the us- · er's daily activities: job, hobby, home management, search for health informa- tion, personal growth, research. The user ~ . becomes an information resource to fam- ily, friends, and neighbors. TAXONOMY OF LIBRARY " SKILLS AND ERRORS We have defined and described three domains of library skills or types of user 1 behaviors and three levels within each do- main. By combining these two dimen- sions together into a matrix we produce a -... contingency table of nine zones, exempli- fied in table 1. The authors of the taxono- mies of educational objectives mention the notion of correlating, paralleling, or ; interpenetrating the three domains, though only the Pierce-Gray scheme at- tempts to do this in full. The idea is alive today among teachers, as shown in some " of the illustrations used by Nancy Po- lette. 13 A psychological theory of skills de- velopment capable of defining and justify- ing the same three levels across the three domains is required. The contingency matrix in table 1 is an explicit theory of library skills capable of classifying all user behaviors into nine ex- haustive classes. The horizontal dimen- sion of the matrix is made up of the three discrete classes of domains of user behav- ior defined and reviewed above. The verti- cal dimension is made up of the three dis- crete classes of levels of development, also defined above. In order to make use of this scheme, li- Learning the Library 207 brarians must understand the three do- mains and the three levels and the mean- ing of the coordinates of the intersecting zones. The summary descriptions in table 1 are illustrative of how the zones could be described. A zone may be adequately de- scribed and paraphrased in many ways; it is important to determine accurately its features by virtue of the intersection on which it falls. SAMPLE DESCRIPTIONS FOR THE NINE ZONES The following are interpretations for TABLE 1 LEVEL3 Internalizing the Library LEVEL2 Interacting with the library LEVEL 1 Orienting to the library TAXONOMY OF LffiRARY SKILLS AND ERRORS Affective Domain Cognitive Domain A3 C3 Mfective Cognitive Internalization Internalization Demonstrating sup- Acquiring personal port for the library knowledge and subjec- perspective on soci- tive intuition of a ety and self. scholarly discipline. (=library con- (=disciplinary connec- science and moral- tion versus lacking ity versus negli- connection) gence) A2 C2 Affective Cognitive Interaction Interaction Demonstrating con- Acquiring objective tinuous striving knowledge of search and value prefer- sequences, their analy- ences favorable to sis and synthesis. the library and its (=library search proto- system. col versus idiosyn- (=positive library cratic search protocol) attitudes versus li- brary resistance) Al Cl Mfective Cognitive Orientation Orientation Demonstrating will- Acquiring representive ingness to practice knowledge and com- library tasks and prehending library- maintaining selec- relevant distinctions. tive attention. (=library map and (=library adjust- glossary versus library ment versus library ignorance) maladjustment) Psychomotor Domain P3 Psychomotor Internalization Performing cumula- tive searches in one's field and promoting the library in one's life. (=lifelong library use versus library disuse) P2 Psychomotor Interaction Negotiating search queries and perform- ing a single, one-time search that meets a current information need. (=library proficiency versus library inepti- tude) Pl Psychomotor Orientation Performing physical operations (hands-on experience, browsing and walking around). (=library exploration and efficiency versus library avoidance and inefficiency) 208 College & Research Libraries each zone with examples of skills and er- rors. Note that the definition of each zone is given by the intersection, which re- mains standard or fixed (e.g., affective ori- entation versus affective interaction; cog- nitive orientation versus cognitive interaction, etc.). But the description of each zone and the specific examples per- mit variable content, as long as the de- scription is congruent with the fixed crite- ria of the definition. In this case, in addition to the description, a title is given for each zone in table 1 (e.g., "Positive Li- brary Attitudes vs. Library Resistance" for zone A2 or, "Lifelong Library Use vs. Library Disuse" for P3). Other titles could be chosen that paraphrase the same con- tent. Al. Affective Orientation This phase is entitled ''Library Adjust- ment vs. Library Maladjustment" to re- flect the motivational challenge a new user must meet when learning to interact with the library. Given the human law of least effort, one is required to compel oneself to do what at first appears to the novice as · mere busy work. For instance, we ob- served a hapless student, alarmed, com- ment to a librarian who was showing him a catalog drawer: "Oh, no! You mean I have to go through all of that?" Upon which the librarian answered, ''Searching is work. It takes time!" It takes a certain degree of psychological or emotional ad- justment to be ready and willing to prac- tice detailed and systematic tasks given to one by another person, often unexpect- edly, and to maintain one's selective at- tention continuously for some minutes or hours. Some examples: User is willing to look at a library map until it becomes clear; accepts a librarian's suggestion; shows as- sertiveness and perseverance in complet- ing a hands-on assignment. These behaviors indicate a patron's af- fective orientation toward learning the li- brary. People who are active in this zone demonstrate task perseverance and com- pliance, or their opposites, unwillingness to practice and to focus attention on the specialized stimuli of the library. Given the primacy of the affective domain it is to be expected that in~viduals who are ei- May1987 ther not active, or negatively active, in this zone will experience emotional conflict and resistance in attempting to acquire search skills. Some examples: User feels ashamed to be seen re-using services; has another person ask the librarian a ques- tion; has undecipherable notes after a . ~ search; has compulsive thoughts of being attacked in the library; and would rather be elsewhere. Cl. Cognitive Orientation The main feature of this zone is memo- rizing library-relevant distinctions such as books versus magazines, current periodi- cals versus bound volumes, subject cards versus author or title cards, regular stacks versus reference, online catalog versus comcat, etc. New terminology is learned. Mental maps are established. New but fairly simple procedures become familiar. This phase is entitled ''Library Map and Glossary." Some examples: User can in- terpret the parts of a catalog card; can dis- tinguish between citation and abstract; comprehends shelf locations by subject; and can phrase a reference query. The learning in this zone is representative of the actual behaviors to be carried out dur- ing a search; for this reason we call it ''rep- resentative knowing,'' to be distin- guished from ''objective knowing,'' described in C2 below. Cognitive orientation in library learning is made up of mental verbalizations that aid in the manipulation of a sequential task such as systematic browsing or locat- ing a book by its call number. It involves memory, association, and common sense. These mental verbalizations, or self-talk, serve as the basis for a higher type of men- tal verbalization called ''search protocol'' (zone C2), which no longer follows com- mon sense but the specialized reasoning of the library system. Individuals who are inactive in cognitive orientation ( -Cl) re- member little, see little, and comprehend little ("Library Ignorance"). They fail to lay the foundation for search skills. Pl. Psychomotor Orientation This zone of learning is titled ''Library Exploration and Efficiency vs. Library A voidance and Inefficiency.'' Its main fea- .. )... tures are physical movements, visual scanning, and external verbalizations. Prospective users require a phase of ad- justment to the library environment, and a significant component of this adjustment is acquired through direct exploration of locations, shelves, signs, and the manipu- lation of drawers, levers, and buttons on machines. Some examples: User tries mi- crofiche reader to see how it works; browses through the two Library of Con- gress Subject Headings volumes; does as- signed tasks on online catalog; takes a walking tour of the library; copies a call number correctly; asks a question; verbal- izes thoughts out loud; blushes; hesitates; repeats a definition. Psychomotor orienta- tion errors, "Library Avoidance and Inef- ficiency" (-Pl), include: User does notal- locate time for learning to use the library; scans screen on microfiche reader instead of first looking at the index on the fiche to locate the matrix coordinates; commits al- phabetical errors in searching, ending up in the wrong drawer or on the wrong fiche; records a call number incompletely; does not allocate sufficient time for library searching; and looks up author under first name instead of last name. While these psychomotor behaviors are executed, cognitive and affective orienta- tion occur simultaneously, on both a gen- eral and a specific level. For instance, in the activity ''User manipulates microfiche reader," there is a general motivation to learn a new tool and numerous specific motivations or intentions in the subtasks of selecting a fiche, inserting it in a particu- lar way, and viewing different parts of it. We note here the importance of verbal- izations as a psychomotor behavior that involves speech mechanisms. Other tax- onomies on the psychomotor domain have not included overt speech responses in their classification scheme, but we be- lieve that to do so is consistent with the na- ture of the three domains. At the lowest level, verbalizations in the form of instruc- tions, signs, definitions, or warnings are stored in memory and utilized by merely repeating them at the right time as a means to help guide one's behavior. As noted by B. F. Skinner and ty L. S. Vy- gotsky, overt verbalizations are character- Learning the Library 209 istic of children performing tasks. 14 As age advances, verbalizations become less intense; in the adult stage they no longer occur except in instructional situa- tions where an adult is learning some- thing totally new. Verbalizations are to be distinguished from the cognitions and af- fections that precede or cause them. For example, reading a sign involves a psy- chomotor behavior (Pl), but comprehend- ing its meaning is a cognitive behavior (Cl). External verbalizations at a higher level are expressions of inner affections, as when a "User expresses gratitude upon accomplishing a successful search" (P3). External verbalizations, which are psy- chomotor, are to be distinguished from in- ternal verbalizations, which are cognitive. The two correspond, as observed by An- ders Ericsson and Herbert Simon. 15 A2. Affective Interaction This zone of library learning, ''Positive Library Attitudes," concerns the user's values regarding the library. While affec- tive orientation (Al) is the willingness, through compliance or obedience, to carry out the librarian's direct instructions, af- fective interaction is the user's willingness to follow self-instructions out of a desire to acquire library proficiency. These two af- fective states are not necessarily related. For instance, a student may be willing to carry out the tasks assigned in an intro- ductory library course (Al), but may have a negative attitude toward libraries and be unwilling to conduct a search for some personal information need. Students who drop a course because it requires library assignments also commit this affective er- ror (-A2). When learners are active in zone A2, they have the desire to adopt the thought process of librarians. To develop library proficiency, users must cultivate a new motive, namely, the determination to face the challenges of a serious, full-fledged search. With this new-found purpose they are likely to overcome the inner forces of doubt, disbelief, or scorn; with this victory comes the beginnings of trust in the library-an essential ingredient for acquir- ing search competence. At last, the user seeks to identify and to interact with the 210 College & Research Libraries library and its system and appreciates the opportunity to do so. This is the essential prerequisite for acquiring objective (formal, standardized) knowledge of the library. Some examples: User strives to learn new tools; resolves to be careful; wants to read library books; feels it is advantageous to learn to use the library; feels happy in a growing ability to carry out searches. Individuals who are negatively active in this zone experience ''Library Resistance'' (-A2), which is the absence of trust and the refusal to alter one's way of thinking as required. Some examples: User is con- vinced in advance that the library has nothing on a certain topic; doubts the cor- rectness of a search sequence when it is ac- curate; and feels discouraged throughout a search. C2. Cognitive Interaction This is called ''Library Search Protocol'' because the objective for the learner is to be able to produce a protocol, or formal- ized search procedure, that makes use of information tools: subject headings, cata- logs, bibliographies, and indexes-and their appropriate interlinking in a sequen- tial search. While the earlier phase of cog- nitive orientation (Cl) is a representative knowing, cognitive interaction is an objec- tive knowing that comes only from the ex- perience of carrying out a hands-on search in response to an actual information need . . In cognitive orientation (Cl), library- relevant distinctions are acquired by rote memory. They remain empty of objective content until the identification level is reached through A2 and an actual search sequence is undertaken in P2. Some ex- amples: User continually analyzes own search procedure; prompts self with ques- tions while searching; realizes signs must be read and heeded; reflects on ways of improving future searches; decides not to follow up on a particular citation; selects a keyword from a title to search with; re- views mental verbalizations of a search se- quence in order to decide on the next step; and clusters book citations by their call number and employs this as a criterion for selecting or rejecting titles. Cognitive interaction errors ( -C2) in- volve the use of nonstandard or ''Idiosyn- May1987 cratic Search Protocol." Some exam pies: user thinks of looking in the card catalog for a periodical article title; is unable to read coded citations in periodical indexes; does not understand the difference be- tween publication history and holdings information in catalog entries; has incor- · rect conception of library tasks. The level of search activity between Cl and C2 has been recognized by librarians such as James Rice, who advocates the "teachin§ of principles as well as tech- niques." Understanding principles in- cludes comprehending bibliographic or- ganization, literature structure within disciplines, interactive retrieval tools such as subject headings and cross-references, and the components of a search strategy. We shall see below that one of these prin- ciples, the structure of literature within disciplines, involves C3 activities. Raising the activity level from mere rep- resentative knowing (Cl) to objective knowing (C2) involves the difficult chal- lenge of learning to think along the lines of the library's organization. The success of this cognitive interaction with the system is conditioned by the individual's inner af- fective interaction with the library (A2): is it the case that the "user demonstrates value preferences favorable to the library'' or that the "user is averse to producing mental verbalizations that involve subject headings"? ( -A2) Mental aversion to thinking in terms of packaged and cross- referenced information must be suffi- ciently overcome before the individual can produce an appropriate search protocol. We have suggested elsewhere how librari- ans might influence the affective learning of patrons. 17 P2. Psychomotor Interaction The steps of library resear~h are classi- fied here; hence, an appropriate title is ''Library Proficiency.'' The physical oper- ations carried out during psychomotor orientation (Pl) activities are only "ex- ploratory'' and are not conducted under the actual motive of a search. In addition, the external verbalizations during psycho- motor orientation (Pl) are simply repre- sentative sentences, fixed repetitions, and imitations. In contrast, psychomotor in- teraction (P2) involves a higher, more ob- jective type of talk. The user is now in an authentic searching state (Level 2), rather than in simulated exploration (Level 1) and is responding to an actual information need that may have life consequences. The external verbalizations of Level 2 search activities are objective and resem- ble those of the librarian, as at the end of the negotiation process between the refer- ence librarian and the patron. 18 In P2 ("Li- brary Proficiency vs. Library Inepti- tude"), the steps carried out begin to count as real search experience, hence as ''proficiency.'' Note that the process of li- brary interaction (Level 2) is necessary in all three domains. Interacting at the psy- chomotor level (P2) is to verbalize like li- brarians about titles, subjects, and in- dexes, to move around like librarians or expert searchers, to walk and stand as they do in relation to shelves and areas, and to use the eyes as they do-selectively noticing details, checking items rapidly and thoroughly. Some examples: User reconciles information by continuous matching and comparing; selects correct subject headings; puts call numbers in or- der before going to the stacks; formulates a reference query; writes down citations; writes down synonyms for a subject; ex- presses appreciation to librarian for help received; and consults the reference li- brarian about an ongoing search. Psychomotor interaction errors (-P2) plague and frustrate many students, as we have learned from their self-reports. Some examples: User overlooks detail previ- ously pointed out; ignores vocabulary dis- tinctions taught; underestimates the time a search requires; gives up a search pre- maturely and leaves the library without any references; and comes to the library without clothes warm enough for an air- conditioned library. A3. Affective Internalization Many patrons, students, and faculty who are active at Level2 remain inactive at Level3. They are barred from further in- ternalizing their intellectual skill by an in- sufficient affective commitment to the idea of the library (A3). The inability to feel love for the library is an affective error at Learning the Library 211 the third level (-A3). To overcome this block, users must find in themselves gen- eralized affections for the good, the true, and the beautiful. All educated people have stirrings of these feelings in their civ- ilized consciences. At Level3 the user con- nects these generalized subjective and ide- alistic feelings specifically to the library. The library perspective on society and self is loved (Level 3) and not just believed (Level2) or merely known (Levell). This zone is titled ''Library Conscience and Morality" since· it involves higher hu- man values. For instance, we gave a one- time slide show presentation on book con- servation to a social psychology class. Many students responded with spontane- ous expressions of sympathy with the striving to save books from destruction by age, humidity, vermin, and careless users dropping books, forcing them open against copy machines, eating while read- ing, and pulling books off the shelf by the spine cap. The presentation elicited overt expressions of recognition and conse- quent confessions of guilt. Many prom- ised to reform, but some insisted that the library should replace books more often! Other examples: User feels the imperative to replace a book on the shelf; feels at- tracted to books and libraries; accepts the idea that a library book is publicly owned; feels awe at all that books symbolize in the history of civilization; feels confident that library resources can improve the quality of life; and has feeling of peace and soli- tude while searching. Negative affections at Level 3, or "Li- brary Negligence" ( -A3), include hostility · toward librarians, books, and users them- selves as searchers. Some examples: User dissociates self from libraries; condones self-chastisement for search errors; feels library books are not of great value since they are replaceable; feels library books are public property so they don't have to be treated carefully; doesn't care about other patrons and doesn't mind making noise. C3. Cognitive Internalization The patron who has acquired library proficiency knows library protocol objec- tively and from experience (C2); but this 212 College & Research Libraries will not necessarily affect thinking in a general way. There must be a cumulative context in order for objective knowing to · metamorphose into personal knowing, such as the knowing of a graduate student or faculty member who is attached to some scholarly discipline by profession or serious hobby. We have named this zone of library learning ''Disciplinary Connec- tion,'' since only thus can library skills be fully internalized. A discipline or field of knowledge provides keywords, subject headings, and thesauri. Through study a person perceives the importance of accu- rate citations and balanced bibliographies and appreciates both the complexity and the value of citation indexes. A disciplinary affiliation or ''major'' af- fords even the undergraduate the intellec- tual opportunity to acquire subjective in- tuitions of a scholarly discipline: perceiv- ing trends, recognizing norms, sensing standards, feeling loyalty toward a theory but defending another's right to have a fair hearing. Some specific examples: User understands how search tools facilitate · finding information; can rank reference works; senses that some of the titles re- trieved might be "false drops"; perceives the relevance of an annotation in a bibliog- raphy; can see how a new tool can aid in keeping abreast of new developments; and has accurate expectations about the content of a citation by considering its place of publication. When a user is ''Lacking in Disciplinary Connection'' (-C3) there is little activity in Cognitive Internalization. User does not understand citation networks; holds in- correct assumptions about particular sub- ject heading content; has no intuitions about the significance of classic works; and fails to see the importance of accurate referencing. P3. Psychomotor Internalization This is the ultimate zone of learning the library and integrating it into one's life. Hence it is called "Lifelong Library Use vs. Library Disuse." Users in this phase are daily information consumers, and have a continuous appetite for informa- tion. They are aware of how little they know compared to "what's out there." May 1987 Users in this zone are overt supporters of libraries, express enthusiasm for its orga- nizational features, and experience a deep sense of satisfaction at their expertise and success in keeping abreast of new infor- mation. Users also verbalize their enjoy- ment and appreciation of libraries. Some examples: User expresses delight upon ac- complishing a search; refrains from mark- ing up a book; reports damage so that it may be repaired; serendipitously discov- ers a reference needed for another pur- pose; promotes the library; observes li- brary bans on food and drink; expresses a desire to read books encountered while searching. "Library Disuse" involves making psy- chomotor internalization errors (-P3), for example: User is upset in the process of using the library; swears or expresses self- condemnation while searching; presses books flat on the photocopying machine; marks up books. SIMILARITY TO OTHER MODELS The theory of library behavior here pre- sented may be helpful to librarians in pro- moting library use. The proposed classifi- cation scheme for user behavior allows librarians to take an integrated view of lev- els of library learning. The notion that there are "levels" of de- velopment in learning the library is intui- tively evident and conforms to the ac- cepted view of learning in other fields, such as biology, psychology, and educa- tion. Nigel Ford believes that ''the library may also have a distinctive role to play in producing certain types of learning'' and refers to three overlapping work styles of a library learner that correspond to the three levels of the taxonomy: "dependence" (Levell); "independence" (Level2); and "interdependence" (Level3). 19 Enhancing library skills from Level 1 to Level 2 is, to Ford, crucial. He suggests teaching approaches that provide guid- ance ''appropriate to particular types and levels of problems requiring informa- tion."20 To help internalize library skills, the library environment ought to encour- age ''affective and longer-term goals such as continuing motivation,'' ''continuing personal development,'' ''allowing access .. to a variety of different approaches to, and points of view on, particular topics." 21 In the taxonomy, these user behaviors are classified at Level 2. Library teaching at Level 1, to dependent learners, is by ne- cessity more direct and immediate. Be- yond orientation, library teaching be- comes more indirect, involving the selection of tools, the choice of access lan- guage, and the availability of services. At Level 2 (interacting with the library), the user is relatively independent and is able to operate from affections and cognitions modeled on the role of the librarian. Level3 development is less frequently dis- cussed in the literature on library instruc- tion but will receive more attention in the future. Earlier taxonomies of educational objec- tives have focused on the vertical contin- uum of levels within each domain one at a time, thus arriving at various numbers of levels arranged on a continuum. In con- trast, this proposal focuses on the hori- zontal integration of each level, simulta- neously across the domains. This model is theoretically distinct from the concept popularized by Bloom, Krathwohl, and colleagues and differs in several major ways. The Pierce-Gray classification system is the most elaborate and explicit of the tax- onomy schemes in the Bloom tradition. 22 It organizes objectives in the three domains along six semiparallellevels. Lower skills are assumed to be distinct across the three · domains. For example, focusing (for cog- nitive), emotive imprinting (for affective), and sensory transmission (for psychomo- tor). Higher skills, however, are assumed to be progressively more cognitive in all three domains. According to the authors, ''the degree of cognitive effort has_ been used as the basic sorting factor to define levels.' ' 23 In conformity with this assump- tion they place the cognitive domain in the first column of their matrix, followed by affective and psychomotor ("CAP"). 24 Fi- nally, there is no integrated title for each level across the domains. In contrast, the model proposed here or- ders the domains from affective to cogni- tive to psychomotor, in accordance with the traditional threefold view of the per- Learning the Library 213 son composed of the will, the understand- ing, and the actions or uses. 25 The will (af- fective domain) is first, since actions originate in it. The understanding (cogni- tive domain) mediates. The actions or uses (psychomotor domain) are external results or effects of the first two. The three domains are dis~inct, but correspond at all levels. The three domains are also explic- itly integrated by level, as indicated by the single title for each level. Table 1 may be viewed as a map of the library learner's states rather than sequential stages. When viewed thus, the matrix represents a si- multaneous display of a user's degree of ac- tivity within each of the nine zones. We believe that future research will demonstrate the advantages of this type of model, which offers a simultaneous dis- play of the lifelong involvement of an indi- vidual's library-related activities. This dis- play may be useful to librarians in all specialties since it maps possible user be- havior. The matrix can thus be used to chart the progress of library learners by determining the degree of activity of a per- son at any one time across the nine zones. SOME ADVANTAGES OF THE TAXONOMY AND ITS APPLICATIONS The main advantage of a theory in a sci- entific field is that it can afford a better un- derstanding of the field's phenomena. We list below a few applications of the classifi- cation scheme presented and the theory on which it rests. The theory 1. offers a unified focus and language for all of library science; 2. guides research, makes it cumula- tive, and provides testable hypotheses on user behavior, library instruction, and li- brary policy; 3. links library science to the social and behavioral sciences, including educa- tional psychology and linguistics; 4. offers a check on the breadth and depth of a curriculum, course, or presen- tation; allows library instruction efforts to incorporate higher levels of user behavior; 5. helps to standardize tests of library skills, to ensure balanced coverage; sug- gests ways tests can be used to assess the 214 College & Research Libraries type of instructional efforts needed; 6. helps librarians in bibliographic in- struction by allowing them to develop ob- jectives at the appropriate level and by providing examples of the relevant lan- guage to be used for each domain; 7. provides the basis for a universal cat- alog of user behavior, or a national classi- fied inventory of library skills and errors, May1987 and, possibly, a data bank that would col- lect and publish the cumulative observa- tions of librarians and information special- ists; in addition, it could generate an international catalog of user behavior that transcends language-specific differences in favor of general, species-related psy- chological standards of searching. REFERENCES 1. Benjamin S. Bloom, ed., Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain (New York: David McKay, 1956); David R. Krathwohl, Benj~ S. Bloom, and Bertram B. Masia, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook II: Affective Domain (New York: David McKay, 1964); M. David Merrill, "Psycho- motor Taxonomies, Classifications, and Instructional Theory,'' in The Psychomotor Domain: Move- ment Behavior, ed. Robert N. Singer (Philadelphia: Lea and Febiger, 1972); Walter D. Pierce and Charles E. Gray, Deciphering the Learning Domains: A Second Generation Classification Model for Educa- tional Objectives (Washington, D.C.: Univ. Pr. of America, 1979); Anita J. Harrow, A Taxonomy of the Psychomotor Domain (New York: David McKay, 1972). 2. Emanuel Swedenborg, Rational Psychology (Philadelphia: Swedenborg Scientific Assn., 1742; 1950). 3. Bloom, Cognitive Domain, p.17. 4. Krathwohl, Affective Domain, p.176. 5. Bloom, Cognitive Domain, p.201. 6. Merrill in Singer, Psychomotor Domain, p. 389-91. Merrill reports a number of other schemes in the psychomotor domain. See p.385ff. 7. Pierce and Gray, Learning Domains, p.201. 8. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Stuart E. Dreyfus, Mind over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer (New York: The Free Pr., 1986), p.16 ff. 9. John C. Gibbs and Keith Widaman, Social Intelligence: Measuring the Development of Sociomoral Re- flection (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, 1982), p.16 ff. 10. Jean Piaget, The Moral Judgement of the Child (New York: Free Pr., 1932). 11. Bloom, Cognitive Domain, p.29. 12. Krathwohl, Affective Domain, p.31-32. 13. NancyPolette, The Research Book for Gifted Programs K-8 (O'Fallon, Mo.: Book Lures, 1984), p.151 . 14. B. F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1957); Lev Semenovich Vy- gotsky, "Thought and Word," in Thought and Language (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Pr., 1962), p.119-53. 15. K. Anders Ericsson and Herbert A. Simon, Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Pr., 1984), p.239. 16. James Rice, Jr., Teaching Library Use: A Guide for Library Instruction (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Pr., 1981), p.42. 17. Diane Nahl-Jakobovits and Leon A. Jakobovits, "Managing the Affective Micro-Information Envi- ronment," Research Strategies 3:17-28 (Winter 1985). 18. Gerald Jahoga and Judith Schiek Braunagel, The Librarian and Reference Queries: A Systematic Ap- proach (New York: Academic Pr., 1980), p.137-39. 19. Nigel Ford, "Towards a Model of 'Library Learning' in Educational Systems," Journal of Librarian- ship 2:247-60 (Oct. 1979). 20. Ibid., p.256. 21. Ibid., p.256. 22. Pierce and Gray, Learning Domains. 23. Ibid., p.183. 24. Ibid., p.201. 25. Swedenborg, Rational Psychology, p.378-97.