[Publib] Missing the Boat (or Getting Wet, at least)

[Michael Schofield]

>From the recent Jobs & People thread:

"Libraries are not about the technology, they are
getting good information to the people.  We may indeed need more
technical skills because it's a technical world, but we also need
humanist librarians with broad general educations who can make
connections where there are no obvious connections to find that one
piece of information that will make all the difference."

There may be resistance against technobabble, but too much resistance 
against intermediate IT skills will make one's library become archaic and 
about Books. Here, in a below-poverty-line, rural county public library, 
more than 90% of the reference questions during the summer (June - August 
11) have been related to troubleshooting etc. ad nauseum. This is in an 
increasingly poorer region of northeast Florida, a profound consideration 
against belief that only big-funding = tech. Our local VoTech, Florida 
Works, Schools, Community College, etc., charge their users with "get thee 
to a library and use their computers, because there are people there to help 
you use them."

Technology with steep learning curves are becoming increasingly affordable 
and necessary: laptops, mini-notebooks, PDAs, external drives, freeware 
galore, and so on.  If it's not simply because recertification for food 
stamps is online, then it's because Joe Blow with a laptop wonders why it's 
running slow after Limewiring things. Libraries can compete against 
bookstores and google for cheap thrills and reference, but if they want to 
be relevant, they need to think about competing against Geek Squad. In this 
county, many can't afford overpriced troubleshooting, but they can afford a 
solid dell. 

Not to mention that publishing will go digital. Don't give me those sermons 
about the smell of books: libraries already struggle with collection 
development budgets: space, shelves, and the collection itself all cost; 
digital space and digital collections cost less. 

So, yeah, you don't need to fear technophiles; but upholding a library's 
sacred cow above the old-book smell of principle is going to leave your 
library irrelevant. 

Don't forget that to expand the reach of public service, you need to get 
into virtual service. More people, more efficient, more information trading 
at the speed of light - that is what "Information Professionals" should be 
concerned with. 
 


-----Original Message-----
From: "Lynne Ingersoll" <lingersoll at blueislandlibrary.org>
To: "'Kathleen Stipek'" <kstipek at aclib.us>, "'Hayden, Laura'" 
<lhayden at bcgov.net>, "'Publib-L listserv'" <publib at webjunction.org>
Cc: 
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:50:58 -0500
Subject: RE: [Publib] Jobs and People


Right on! And amen sister!

Lynne S. Ingersoll
Reference Services Manager
Technical Services Manager
Blue Island Public Library
2433 York Street
Blue Island, IL 60406
(708) 388-1078 x21
(708) 388-9301 Fax

-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org]
On Behalf Of Kathleen Stipek
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 7:37 AM
To: Hayden, Laura; Publib-L listserv
Subject: RE: [Publib] Jobs and People

I knew I shouldn't have started paying attention to this thread when I
got off sick leave, because I knew it would make me mad, but against my
better judgment I did and it did. 

I am so tired of the opinion leaders in my profession falling all over
themselves to agree that librarians are all going to go the way of the
passenger pigeon that if it wouldn't give my doctor a fit I'd have one.
Those who lurk in their offices, go to conferences, and spend all their
time talking among themselves need to come out on the public service
floor and get a good look at our patrons.  Work the desk.  Answer the
phone.  Do the e-mail and chat reference.  The same people who drove us
crazy pre-internet by asking for books with blue covers and inquiring
about biology books when they need a book on how to deal with chemo are
still around, and the addition of the internet and databases has merely
added to their confusion.  And those are the ones with halfway decent
educations.

They know little or nothing about evaluating information resources, so
they can't tell when a site is trustworthy.  They can google and bing
and do whatever else the technophiles have dreamed up in the last 2.0
seconds, and they still aren't going to get the good stuff.  Think about
the ill-educated and illiterate, and you get a picture of a whole lot of
people who need a whole lot of librarians.  

Let us abandon this swooning surrender in the face of technophiles and
governing bodies who want to do it all on the cheap and get back to
patron service.  Libraries are not about the technology, they are
getting good information to the people.  We may indeed need more
technical skills because it's a technical world, but we also need
humanist librarians with broad general educations who can make
connections where there are no obvious connections to find that one
piece of information that will make all the difference. We can make that
difference if we choose to.  Most desk librarians already have made that
choice.  Now we need the opinion leaders to back us up--in the words of
the paratrooper battle cry--all the way.

Kathleen Stipek

Alachua County Library District

401 East University Avenue

Gainesville, Florida 32601

352-334-3931, fax 352-334-3939

 

--Non, merci

  Cyrano de Bergerac

  



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