PERSPECTIVES ON.... Six Degrees of InfoStanley Milgram aof the Libraryby Kathryn James

Available online 25 July 2006

Stanley Milgrams 1967 small world socialconnectivity study is used to analyzeinformation connectivity, or patron

information-seeking behavior. The smallworld study, upon examination, offers a clearexample of the failure of social connectivity.

This failure is used to highlight the importanceof the subjectivities of patron experience of the

small world or information network of thelibrary.

Kathryn JamBeinecke RYale Univerbkathryn.jaThe Journal ofof people who acted as intermediaries along the chains path.Individuals with more social connectionsor whose socialnetworks intersected more frequentlywould have a lowerdegree of separation than individuals with fewer or no socialconnections. Milgrams conclusion was that individuals withinthe study were separated, on average, by six degrees or fiveintermediaries.6

Milgrams object, as the studys name and participantadvertisement indicate, was to examine social connectivity,the forces which connect, inform, and influence individualswithin society. As Milgram outlines in his paper, the name

es is the Reference Librarian,are Book and Manuscript Library,sity, USAmes@yale.eduN.someone who, in the participants opinion, would be mostlikely either to be able to reach the target or to know someoneelse who could. The degrees therefore represent the numberAcademic Librarianship, Volume 32, Number 5, pages 527532occupation, educational status, and place of childhood.5 Theyrmation Seeking:nd the Small World

Opportunity: Here is an opportunity to make acontribution to science, by taking part in a study ofsocial contact in America. Could you, as a typical

American, contact another citizen, regardless of his walk oflife?1

STANLEY MILGRAMS SMALL WORLD STUDY

Some version of the small world thesis will be familiar toanyone who has ever seen the play or film of Six Degrees ofSeparation or, for that matter, encountered the University ofVirginias on-line Oracle of Bacon (www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/). The small world thesis was first published by StanleyMilgram in 1967, in the wake of the controversy surroundinghis obedience study.2 Initially known solely in academiccircles, it was only much later that the study achieved thebroader cultural status it now holds. The idea of socialconnectivity was incorporated by John Guare into a play, SixDegrees of Separation (1990) and was later cited in 1998 as thetheoretical foundation of an influential Nature article onnetwork theory.3

The study was deceptively simple. An advertisement wasplaced in a local paper, asking for volunteers to make acontribution to science, by taking part in a study of socialcontact in America.4 The study participants were told that apacket should reach a given individual, about whom they weregiven a few pieces of information, such as present and past

were asked to send the packet towards the target, through themedium of an individual they knew on a first-name basisSeptember 2006 527

derives from a common experience, that of meeting a strangerwho knows a friend or acquaintance:

society. This attempt has lived an ironic double existence: asa scientific study, the small world experiment can only beregarded as a failure; as a phenomenon of popular culture,Fred Jones of Peoria, sitting in a sidewalk cafe in Tunis, and needing a

light for his cigarette, asks the man at the next table for a match. They

fall into a conversation; the stranger is an Englishman who, it turns out,

spent several months in Detroit studying the operation of an

interchangeable bottle-cap factory. dI know itTs a foolish questionT,says Jones, dbut did you ever by any chance run into a fellow namedBen Arkadian? Hes an old friend of mine, manages a chain of

supermarkets in Detroit. . .T dArkadian, ArkadianT, the Englishmanmutters. dWhy, upon my soul, I believe I do! Small chap, very energetic,raised merry hell with the factory over a shipment of defective bottle

caps.T dNo kidding!T Jones exclaims in amazement. dGood Lord, its asmall world, isnt it?T7

The social connection between these two fictionalindividuals was one which had to be discoveredactivelysought out, delineated, and shared. Two small worlds cantherefore be seen to exist in this passage: the actual smallworldin which individuals, possibly unbeknownst to eachother, share a social connectionand the actualized smallworld, in which individuals anticipate, research, and discovera social connection.

Thus the small world is one which must be discoveredmust be, in fact, enacted through at least one participantsbelief in the possibility of a connection and both partic-ipantsT mutual willingness to engage in the socializationnecessary to discover it. The small world therefore embodiessomething of a paradox: the small world effect is striking ormemorable only because its participants believe they live ina large world, one in which such social interconnectedness isnot to be readily expected. The small world effect comesinto existence, however, precisely because the participantspursue the possibility of connection, through a process ofmutual social mapping. Like Tinkerbell, the small worldcomes into being in Milgrams example when the twoparticipants remember to clap their hands or, as the case maybe, to chat to their neighbors and ask appropriate networkingquestions.

. ..[Stanley Milgrams] small world[experiment] therefore embodies something of aparadox: the small world effect is striking or

memorable only because its participants believethey live in a large world, one in which suchsocial interconnectedness is not to be readily

expected.

Milgrams study was presented and has been critiquedlargely on the strengthsor, in this particular case, theweaknessesof his experiment as an objective, quantifiablestudy in network theory. The six degrees of separationpresent a view of the social world as a mappable system, anetwork whose workings Milgram intended to analyze in hisexperiment. The experiment was intended and has beenregarded as an attempt to show the connections within

528 The Journal of Academic Librarianshiphowever, the small world study has achieved iconic status,perhaps measuring if nothing else the degree to whichindividuals in contemporary society wish to be separated bya mere six degrees.

Most of the attention given Milgrams study has centered onthe in/validity of the idea that society is actually connected bysix degrees of separation. Milgrams actual results, however,show that the vast majority of Milgrams subjects either failedto participate or failed to complete their social connection.8

Many of Milgrams test subjects self-selected out of theexperiment, failing to participate at all; others participated,but ultimately failed to initiate a chain which was or could becompleted. Rather than portraying a world separated by aquantifiable number of degrees of separation, Milgrams studyreveals a world in which the vast majority of participants didntwish, didnt have, or didnt succeed in completing anyconnection at all.

FROM SOCIAL CONNECTIVITY TOINFORMATION CONNECTIVITY

Milgrams study focuses on the world of the social, theconnections which exist between individuals as they livetheir lives in society. His study is also relevant to theworld of information. A library patrons search forinformation is itself an exercise in the in/validity of thesmall world thesis, a study in the viability of the six (ortwo or ten) degrees of separation between an individualresearcher and an information object. The small worldexperiment could also be viewed as an experiment ininformation science, a view illustrated by a passage fromMilgrams own analysis of the interdisciplinary nature ofthe small world study:

the chains are always forged by the choices of individual minds making

decisions as to the best way of reaching the target person. The particular

strategies adopted by any single individual is a legitimate object of

interest and helps illuminate the small world problem.9

Research within a library is an exercise in informationconnectivity, testing the ultimate ability or inability of a librarypatron to make a connection between an information searchand an information object.

A library patrons search for information isitself an exercise in the in/validity of the smallworld thesis, a study in the viability of the six (ortwo or ten) degrees of separation between an

individual researcher and an informationobject.

This paper examines the implications of Milgrams smallworld experiment for the study of information-seekingbehavior in the library. In doing this, it follows Milgrams

own explicit recognition of the interdisciplinary implications ofthe small world study. As Milgram writes,

expectations and pre-conceptions of a library. One conclusionto be drawn from this is that change, if it is to benefit patronsundertaking a library information search, must be directedin its applications, the small world problem is not limited to the

disciplines that gave rise to it. The model it suggests is relevant to

domains of history, sociological [sic], social psychology, and political

scientists.10

To this list should be added the study of library andinformation science.

This paper examines the implications ofMilgrams small world experiment for the studyof information-seeking behavior in the library.

As a system, the small world is a failure. Theexperimental data which Milgram actually collected revealsthe failure of the small world system: the great majority ofthe network chains simply were not completed. Rather than asa problematic success, the small world study should beregarded as an important failure. As an exercise in user-basedanalysis, the small world study raises several importantquestions: Why did most chains fail to complete? What werethe factors influencing individualsT decisions not to participate?These questions highlight the ongoing tension between asystems-based and a user-based approach to the analysis ofinformation-seeking behavior within the library.

Milgram doesnt seem to have been interested in the failureof the small world. His experiment, however, is at its mostconvincing as a study of the failure of social connectivityand, by extension for our purposes, the possibility of the failureof the small world system in the library. Rather thanfocusing on the 1321% of MilgramTs study populations whoactually completed the social connectivity experimentthosewho forged links of two or six or ten degrees of separationitis worth examining the other 7987% who, through reasons notexplored by Milgram, failed to complete any form of socialconnection at all.11 These are the participants from whom we,as librarians, need to begin to learn if we are to understandpatronsT information-seeking behavior.

...[The small world] experiment, however, is atits most convincing as a study of the failure ofsocial connectivityand, by extension for ourpurposes, the possibility of the failure of the

small world system in the library.

This study argues that information seeking is fundamentallymisunderstood when it is conceivedand taughtin systems-rather than user-based terms. Information seeking, like socialconnectivity, needs to be understood less as an objective,logical, or linear progression from need to object than as a userpractice influenced by subjective factors such as individualaway from the mechanics of the information systems them-selves and towards the transformation of individualsT under-standing of those library systems.

THE WORLD, SMALL OR LARGE, AS SUBJECTIVEPERCEPTION

The defining characteristic of the small world experiment isthat the entirety of the worldthe extent and boundaries ofthe social networkcan never be seen from any oneindividuals standpoint. Each participant only saw the extentof his or her own social network; within the library, each patroncan only see to the extent of his or her own understanding ofthe librarys information network. At the maps edge of anysocial or information network always lies a boundary beyondwhich the participant can see either a possibility-filled frontieror a wasteland where there be only dragons. The world seemsas small or as large, in short, as the participants themselvesbelieve it to be.

The participantsT impressions of the social or informationnetworkof its scope, its navigability, its possibilities foroffering success or failureshape the decisions each partic-ipant makes on how to proceed within it. This is especiallyobvious at two moments of decision in the individualsinteraction within the small world: the decision whether toparticipate in the small world experiment (or to initiate a librarysearch) and the decision of how to go about participating,whether in choosing an acquaintance or in choosing aninformation source. The characteristics of these two juncturesare explored below.

Participation

Milgrams small world effect comes into being onlythrough the continual practice of a small world hypothesis:striking up a conversation with someone who might knowsomebody, or sending on a letter to somebody who, equally,might be able to send it on to someone else. Equally, it failsto emerge when participants refuse to participate, whetherthrough imagining the connections possibility or throughengaging in the necessary research and communication todiscover a connection. The most important determinant ofwhether or not a chain was completed was whether or notthe participant actually sent the packet on to somebody.Failure to participate, to elect to use ones network ofacquaintances, guaranteed the failure of the chain. Eachchain, taken in the abstract, was always theoreticallypossible. This is to say that each chain could always,regardless of the participantsT backgrounds or circumstances,potentially have been completed. All that the participantshad to do, ultimately, was send the packet on to some-bodysome one person in his or her social network,whether a friend, relative, or acquaintance.

Myopia and Participant World View

The participants could not foresee the actual eventualoutcome of the chain: they could only know their expectationsof the next link, the individual they had selected to receive thepacket. Although each participant might be able to anticipatecorrectly or incorrectlycharacteristics of the next personTssocial network (bigger or smaller than their own, similar or

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varied in constituency), she or he could not anticipate with anycertainty the actual path taken by the letter. The study tested, inpart, the optimism (or pessimism) which any one individual

formed by a user before the search even begins or resultsare found that a search would not be productive.Participation in the library search, as with participation inhad about the extent of his or her social network.Subjective expectationsfrom delighted anticipation to

glum resignationunderpin each individuals decision pro-cesses, when electing whether and/or how to approach aresearch project in a library. Some library userswhetherthrough natural buoyancy, positive past experiences, orprevious trainingwill have a positive belief in their abilityto complete an information search. To these users, theinformation networks of the library OPACs and resources willrepresent a potentially small world: an information network,that is to say, which can manageably and productively benavigated by the individual.

If some users are positive in their approach, however, then itis inevitable that other users will also be negative. If a userdoubts the navigability of a library system (due to whateverconstellation of factors, be they personality, past experience, orinadequate training), then the library resources will seem torepresent a large world: an information network which doesnot seem manageable or navigable.

The overarching contribution which Milgrams small worldstudy offers to the study of patron information seekingbehavior is that information connectivity, like social connec-tivity, is defined by subjective rather than objective percep-tions. The library information network is only as useable,efficient, productive, navigable, or worthwhile as the usersimpression of it. As Abbott (2004) argues, in a study ofsubjectivity and information retrieval,

The detection of significance is a subjective activity; significance does

not occur ready made and labeled as such. At the fundamental level it is

something that only we, as individuals, can do. This has a number of

consequences, for instance in evaluating the usefulness of a library

collection, in classification and indexing, in spotting new trends, and in

creativity and innovation.12

Ultimately, an information search is only as feasible orproductive as its perception by the library patron. One usermight, with the same results as another, feel that his or hersearch was inadequate, whether by comparison with theanticipated search results, with initial expectations of thelibrary resources, or with some other expectation of the searchprocess itself. What seems a useful or productive search to onepatron might, with the same topic and results, seem to anotherto have been an absolute waste of time.

The overarching contribution which Milgramssmall world study offers to the study of patroninformation seeking behavior is that informationconnectivity, like social connectivity, is defined

by subjective rather than objectiveperceptions.

More critical to his or her ultimate participation in thelibrary information network, though, might be perceptions

530 The Journal of Academic Librarianshipthe small world experiment, remains the single mostimportant determinant of a searchs chance of success. Ifa patron doesnt use library resources, s/he wont findanything with them. Equally, if a patron quits before resultsare returned (whether because the search is difficult, slow,or simply because of the already listed factors of person-ality, previous experience, or inadequate training), then thesearch will be unsuccessful.

The library, then, might have an actual informationnetwork, a compilation of interfaces, catalogs, indices, andsources possessed of a reassuringly concrete material (orvirtual) existence. The primary information network in action,however, is that potential or hypothetical network whichexists in the users perceptionthe library which is as big oras small, as worthwhile or as inefficient as its users believe.This perception of a librarys resources determines, in turn,how the user approaches (or fails to approach) his or herresearch.

IMPLICATIONS OF THE SMALL WORLD EXPERIMENT FORLIBRARY INSTRUCTION

Milgrams small world experiment carries several implicationsfor library instruction. The strongest implication is that libraryinstruction needs to engage with the reality of a userssubjective impression of library resources. The decisions toinitiate a search (to participate, as it were, in the smallinformation world hypothesis) and to pursue a search, aregoverned by individuals positive or negative expectations andexperience of the library information system.

The strongest implication is that libraryinstruction needs to engage with the reality of a

users subjective impression of libraryresources.

Much of the literature on library instruction, by contrast,centers on the question of how best to teach effectivesearch techniqueswhether through a single session ofgeneralized bibliographic instruction, through course-inte-grated instruction, or through designating a librarian for aspecific course, as examples. Instruction is primarily gaugedon its effectiveness in training library users in appropriatemethods of information retrieval. If successful, thisapproach is a pragmatic means by which to equip the userwith skills which might increase both their ability and theirconfidence in their ability to perform a successful search.This embodies, however, a view of the library informationsearch as a primarily rational process, one furthermoreengaged in rationally by equally rational users. As Quinn(2004) argues, in an evaluation of the psychologicalexperience of on-line searching, the prevailing view isthat the mental process that constitutes online searching is astrictly intellectual, rational and logical procedure largelyindependent of feeling.13

The rationalistic view of information seeking presumes notso much a small information world as, so to speak, a flatone. It proceeds from the premise that the library information

small world of the library, information connectivitylike

3. Blass, TheManWho Shocked theWorld, 285. For theNature article,see Duncan J. Watts and Steven H. Strogatz, Collective Dynamicsof dSmall-WorldT Networks, Nature, 393, no. 4 (1998): 440442.social connectivitymight have less to do with the objectiverealities of a patrons search, search methods, and searchresults, than it does with the patrons subjective expectationsand experience of the small or large world of thelibrary.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Stanley Milgram Papers. Manuscripts and Archives, YaleUniversity (hereafter Milgram). This is the opening text ofthe advertisement which Stanley Milgram placed in TheWichita Beacon (10/28/1964) and The Wichita Eagle (10/29/1964) to recruit participants to the small world study. The adcontinues: You will find experiment [sic] interesting and funto discuss with your friendsand you can take part by mailin your own home. WHO IS ELIGIBLE? Housewives,professional people, businessmen, workers, students. Youmust, however, be among the first five hundred to apply.HERE IS ALL YOU DO: Fill out the coupon below andmail it back to us. You will receive, free of charge, byreturn mail all the materials needed to take part in thestudy. 60 people were, in fact, recruited to the study(Milgram, Box 48, Folder 201).

2. Milgram published, to much notoriety, the four articles on theobedience studies between 19631965. Blass discusses thereaction to the obedience study, but is limited in hiscommentary on the small world experiment. See ThomasBlass, The Man Who Shocked the World (New York: BasicBooks, 2004). The small world study was commissioned byNicholas Charney, editor of the then fledgling publicationPsychology Today, in a letter of 29 September 1966, in whichCharney discusses having seen MilgramTs presentation at themeeting of the American Psychological Association (Milgram,Box 48, Folder 191).network represents a closed and finite system, one which canbe navigated in a logical series of steps by its users. If,however, the users perception of the library is to be taken as avalid and, in fact, important map of the librarys informationnetwork, then there is no real or actual structure to thelibrary resources which can be revealed, as in some Platonicpuppet show, to its participants.

Logic and library instruction might, therefore, have less incommon than expected. As Quinn argues,

Although there is a substantial literature in the field of library and

information science that addresses the issue of how to conduct

successful online searches, most of it attributes success to a matter of

mastering search technique. Little attention has been paid to the role that

psychological factors such as mood, emotion and attitude may play in

determining whether a search is successful or not.14

The primary measure of success of the Milgram experi-ment chains was not whether or not the chains were sixdegrees long, but rather whether they were completed at all.Perhaps the most important determinant of a users ability tocomplete a library information search is whether she or heattempts one in the first place and, having begun, persists onto the end. Subjective pre-conceptions and impressions arepivotal in shaping this process and, by extension, the libraryusers long-term conceptualization of the library. In theOther influential works incorporating the small world theoryinclude Malcolm Gladwell, Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg, TheNew Yorker, January 11 (1999), Gladwells The Tipping Point(Boston: Little, Brown, 2000), and John Guares Six Degrees ofSeparation (New York: Vintage, 1990). An interesting backgroundto the subject of Guares play can be found in Dan Barry, AboutNew York: He Conned the Society Crowd but Died Alone, TheNew York Times, July 19 (2003).

4. Milgram, Box 48, Folder 201.5. In the 19641965 Wichita, Kansas pilot, for instance, thetarget was one Mrs. Alice Mahan, in Cambridge, MA, aboutwhom the participants were told: 1) that she was the wife of adivinity school student (the school wasnTt specified); 2) that shewas the former employee of the Atlantic Refining Company inPhiladelphia, PA; 3) that she was a former school teacher; and 4)that she was originally from North Wales, PA. Milgram said, ofthe description, that the information should, of course, havebeen useful in deciding upon the friend, acquaintance, or relativewho would be more likely to know Mrs. Mahan (Milgram, Box48, Folder 199). A letter inviting an individual to be a target in alater study highlights Milgrams expectations of the studysresults: one could expect that of the 100 starting persons, only 5or 10 would get through to you, he writes. He later continues:The reason I am approaching you on this matter is quite simple.I have contact with very few people outside of the academicworld, but need to include people from several professions inorder to make this study representative (Milgram, Box 48,Folder 191).

6. Judith Kleinfeld has been trenchant in her critique of Milgramsresults, arguing that Milgram mis-represented his data. SeeJudith Kleinfeld, Six Degrees of Separation: Urban Myth?Psychology Today, 35, no. 2, (2002): 74, and her The SmallWorld Problem. Society, 39, no. 2 (2002): 6166. Althoughsome of Milgrams notes (often casual jottings on scraps ofpaper) and typescripts of his data summaries (not by him,although with occasional corrections by Milgram) exist in thearchive, there is little in the way of raw data in the Milgramholdings.

7. Stanley Milgram, The Small World Problem PsychologyToday, (1967): 61. Cited in Kleinfeld, The Small WorldProblem: 61.

8. Of the 60 participants in the Kansas project, 40 chains wereactually begun (i.e. 20 participants, who had already contactedthe Communications Project in response to the ad, thensubsequently failed to participate). 145 postcards were receivedat Harvard, meaning that 145 individuals, having received thechain, passed it on. Of the 40 chains begunand the 60totalonly 3 were actually completed (Milgram, Box 48,Folder 199).

9. Milgram, Box 48, Folder 196.10. Milgram, Box 48, Folder 196.11. These figures are taken from the data results included in the

Milgram archive. Milgrams own notes in these papers aresomewhat opaque. Box 48, Folder 199 (Notes: NebraskaStudy) contains a typescript summary of the Kansas study,cited above. Also in Box 48, Folder 199 are MilgramTs hand-written notes on the data from the Nebraska study (alsoundated). These are summarized: CHAINS WHICH FAILEDTO START=79; INCOMPLETE CHAINS=153; COMPLETECHAINS=64; TOTAL TO START=217; A=296. In Box 48,Folder 201, entitled Subject Recruitment, a sheet of yellowin hand-written notes, indicates the chain completion of a studycontrasting white and African-American responses: Overall:13% (80 completed out of 600); Negro [SIC], 7% (20completed out of 300); (60 completed out of 300). The studies,

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in fact, show a consistently poor return rate. The six degreesof separation are based on the average number of linksbetween those who actually completed the study, rather than inany way reflecting the norm, which was instead of the failureof social connectivity.

12. Robert Abbott, Subjectivity as a Concern for Information

Science: A Popperian Perspective, Journal of InformationScience 30 (2) (2004): 99100.

13. Brian Quinn, Overcoming Psychological Obstacles to OptimalOnline Search Performance, The Electronic Library 21 (2)(2004): 143.

14. Ibid. 142.532 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

Six Degrees of Information Seeking: Stanley Milgram and the Small World of the LibraryStanley Milgram's small world studyFrom social connectivity to information connectivityThe world, small or large, as subjective perceptionParticipationMyopia and Participant World View

Implications of the small world experiment for library instructionNotes and References