Ashamed.

September 27th, 2006 by cathy

I am ashamed of myself. I complained about reading the articles for the Technology Institute, and then felt awful when Patty read it (especially since she’s on the committee) ) . I love technology, in fact I saturate myself in it. I just feel that library 2.0 could be summed up in a couple of sentences:

  1. Go where your patrons are (the internet)
  2. find ways to make it more useful for them
  3. find ways to make it more interactive
  4. find ways to make it more efficient

This all sounds very nice, however by making our patrons self-sufficient, we are putting ourselves out of jobs

  1. using podcasting to do story times on the internet
  2. making search engines more intuitive and more accessible
  3. digitizing lots of our books
  4. becoming like netflix and sending books to the patrons

By removing ourselves further and further from our patrons, we are giving them the impression that we aren’t necessary anymore. Sure we may still be doing lots of behind the scenes things, but who’ll know that besides us? Also what happens to all those without computers; senior citizens, lower income people…

Do we tell them to use our computers to find the information that they are looking for, rather than letting them know that we are here for them and that we are listening to their concerns. I graduated from library school in 2002. During the time I was there they changed the school to the school of “Informatics”. Most of the classes had to do with technology or the Internet. Not that I disagree with this, however very few classes seemed to deal with the people side of our jobs. We do serve people, you know. Not computers. I got into this field, not only because I love books, but mostly because I love people. I love working with people and finding ways to help them to the best of my ability.

Anywho. I apologize to Patty for complaining. It was very bad of me. Shame shame shame.

Leave a Reply