Building 21st century librarians AND libraries

Meredith Farkas:

So, I think the problem is so much bigger than library schools still teaching students that this tech stuff is optional (which is not to say that isn’t a huge problem too). It’s also the way organizations are structured. So many libraries have a 1.0 org chart for a 2.0 world. They’re not structured to support public services technologies like blogs, wikis, etc. They’re not set up to allow for the sort of experimentation and agile decision-making that is required to meet the changing needs and wants of our users. So I don’t know that in an environment like that, hiring an emerging technologies librarian or a 2.0 librarian or whatever is the answer. You’re just putting a band-aid on a problem that goes to the heart of how your organization is structured and how decisions are made.

March 10, 2008 by Uncategorized 1

You may also like...

1 Response

  1. mdoneil says:
    March 11, 2008 at 3:07 am

    I think the problem is library schools
    Thats it, library schools. They want to get students in but they don’t care if you can get a job, they don’t care if you have useful skills, they don’t care about anything but their own existance. There may be a few professors who do care (and I am thinking of Dr. de la Pena McCook) but in the sea of apathy they are the few bright channel markers.

    I had a great job for a librarian and I had to beg library schools to post the job and my alma mater did not after 3 emails.

    Library schools don’t care about librarians, the ALA does not care for librarians, and we can see from the Wausau debacle that libraries don’t care about librarians.

    You are on your own. I’ve never thought otherwise, but now it is time for all librarians to wake up and smell the coffee.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

LISNews Archives