Role of the Professional

When drawing a connection between this search process and Kuhlthau's (1999) ISP model, an appropriate corollary did not easily follow to the service providers' level of intervention using an instructional model such as Kuhlthau's. The nature of this particular search was not an academic project in which understanding the search process would help the individual's completion of it. In the broadest sense, however, it was the services provider's task to" identify the searcher's information need and and what mediation and instruction are appropriate" (Kuhlthau, 1999, p. 14). The specificity of the need and the characteristics of the provided results more accurately demonstrated a service provision model than an instructional one.

It is useful to examine this information need through Grovers model for diagnosing information needs (as cited buy Thomas, 2004) because it is not tied to the information search process itself, but rather to the diagnosis, prescription, treatment and evaluation of users wants and needs. The model is designed to customize results by anticipating these wants and needs, especially when users are unsure how to express their needs effectively. The service provider who was most effective in the interviewee's experience did this. The service providers' diagnosis included recognizing the visceral quality of this particular need. On some level the service provider also was aware of her own preferences and those of the searcher which helped in prescribing treatment. Her treatment was within a service provision model and she followed up to evaluate whether or not the need was met.

The service provisions that were least effective and those that were most effective can be described by comparing relationship vs. encounter service models (Gutek & Welch, 2000). The interviewee described three ineffective service experiences.

1) the Library and University HR website
2) the US Government website
3) the response from the personnel in University HR.

The first two were examples of encounters (Gutek & Welch, 2000). The customer's access to the service was unattended and the ability to provide feedback was indirect. The service was organized for efficiency; it was designed to be a fast and low cost transaction. The last service example could be described as a pseudo-encounter. The interviewee had hoped that by asking a direct question to a person, rather than searching static information, she would get a better result. Instead the provider seems to act according to a script, by simply regurgitating what information is already provided on the website.

The most effective service occurred when the provider took the user's feelings and agenda into consideration. This exemplifies the relationship model (Gutek and Welch, 2000). The service in this model was efficient because the information need and the feedback could be discussed directly and informally. The interviewee did identify with one the drawbacks of this method when she recognized her privilege over others in future who would try to find the same information.