[Publib] "Old" librarian

[Diedre Conkling]

And some of us who are a bit older (55 years) have been growing with computers and various computer related technology for years.  We have been here for every change.  We went from things like Gaylord punch card systems to CLSI (long gone) to today's systems.  

We have gone from typewriters to the first Sony word processing systems to the first IBM laptop, and various changes in pc's and laptops since then.  We have learned about clouds, t1, relays, broadband, bandwidth, etc.  Some of us even think our Voyager phones are great toys and use them for texting, email, web browsing and even making a phone call.  

Some of us had to learn everything we could about running our library computer systems early on because there were no tech people around to do any of the work and that kind of position was not added to our budgets until years later.  We can still even do a lot of troubleshooting though we like to refer things to the person we know have responsible for the technology end of things in our libraries.

Some of us have been using e-mail and the Internet for years.  We have learned about RSS, blogs, twitter, flickr, im, and doodle.  Much of it we find very useful and we are very interested in the possibilities.  Even if we haven't done something ourselves we have read or heard about it and see ways that our staff can apply the tools to their everyday jobs to better help our patrons.

So, we are older but we have actually been here and been an active part of the changes that have come about.  I admit that there are days when I don't want to learn one more new thing and then someone mentions a handy little program and I am back into it all again.



--
Diedre Conkling
     
  Lincoln County Library District
  P.O. Box 2027, Newport, OR  97365
  Phone & Fax:  541-265-3066
  http://lcld.library-blogs.net/
  Work:  diedre at beachbooks.org
  Home:  diedrec at charter.net
   

---- Caroline Desrosiers <caroline.desrosiers at gmail.com> wrote: 

=============
I was going to stay out of this (very entertaining) discussion, but I have
to jump in here.  Yes, Ms. Rheay's aversion to technology seems to prove
Hillary's point about older librarians, but as a young-ish librarian (I'm
35, in the interest of full disclosure) I will throw this out there.  I
teach computer classes for my library system, and a lot of my students are
older patrons who are overwhelmed by new technology.  It's a huge learning
curve and it seems to me that those of us coming into the profession with
computer skills (due in large part because we grew up with computers) owe it
to our older colleagues to help them become comfortable with new technology.

My older colleagues have helped me immeasurably with the 'more traditional'
aspects of library service, so the least I can do is help them out with
computer issues.  If we're not learning from each other we're wasting some
pretty important resources, don't you think?

Caroline


On 3/27/08, K.G. Schneider <kgs at bluehighways.com> wrote:
>
> "Her classic approach included an aversion to technology, her nephew
> said." Um...
>
>