I recently read a blog posted by Kathryn Greenhill on librariansmatter.com. It was a post entitled “20 reasons why learning emerging technologies is part of every librarian’s job“. Wow! It sure hit home. I must say that I came into Internet Fundamentals and Design rather oblivious to Web 2.0 and all of the technologies out there. I now feel grounded enough to continue exploring and experimenting. There are some librarians out in the world who may want to hide their heads in the sand and ignore the emerging technologies. If that is the case, they are not doing their jobs. The 20 reasons listed by Ms. Greenhill are all very valid. I would like to highlight a few important ones. Core business. We chose to be librarians to link people and information. We have to use all the technologies available to do this, not just the ones we learned years ago that is outdated. Understanding all formats. What if our users come to us and we have to tell them that we don’t use or know a certain format? Well they use it and can’t get the help we are there to provide. We have just lost a patron. Finding out what other libraries are doing. We can enhance our library and programs by finding out what libraries around the world do. However, if we don’t understand a certain technology, it is our patrons that lose out. The other 17 reasons are worth a look. See if you agree.
Sometimes librarians need a push even when they know they should become more familiar with technologies. The Public Libraries of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Counties in North Carolina has developed a program to support Learning 2.0. It is “a discovery learning program designed to encourage staff to explore new technologies and reward them for doing 23 things. 23 Learning 2.0 Things has broken the task into do-able pieces. Asking librarians to try out a few things each week such as posting a blog, starting a wiki or subscribing to an RSS reader. It is self-directed with a few people available for assistance. The prizes are just the carrots dangling to entice people. It is amazing that some libraries have to go to this extreme to have their staff learn new technologies that are needed for their jobs now and in the future. Any more procrastinating on some people’s part and libraries could lose a large portion of their users.
