Technology can be a little crazy for librarians, especially in small libraries where maybe there's only dial-up access to the internet, or you only have one or two people who can help with tech 3 hours a week. However, you need not fear the Big Bad Technology. Technology isn't about knowing all the stuff, technology is really about knowing how to look up answers and try to figure it out. Look up your error messages on Google, sit down with a patron and figure out their webmail client (which you've, incidentally, never seen before), and don't be scared. It's like any other reference thing.
[Aside: For those of you who attended the session, or not, here's the link to the lolbrarians group she mentioned. Funny pictures of libraryish things in a community, like lolcatsy sites she mentioned.]
Jessamyn is quite the lover of Ranganathan, because he came up with some great laws for librarianship, and his rules really can be applied to so much of what librarians do outside of content. Jessamyn is a big believer that Ranganathan would love the interactive web, and would dig how his rules fit in. I'm a believer, myself. Caveat: Law 4 does state that you should "save the time of the reader," which often equals "user more librarian time for work," which may not work for some. When it comes to Library 2.0, whether it's educating librarians, or integrating tech into the library, or just making your physical space more usable, it's totally worth it.Check out the presentation online, it's awesomely comprehensive, sensible, and educational (and loads wicked fast on low broadband). The only thing missing is The Excellent and Humorous Live Jessamyn Experience.
1 comment:
Jessamyn was great, wasn't she? And she played to a standing room only crowd.
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