What Do We Do?

My late step-father was in the IT field.  He had one of those jobs that I never seemed to understand.  He described it to me a couple of times, but it went right over my head.

In a little different way, we as librarians have a job that few understand. Part of this is because the work that we often do is behind the scenes.  Instead, what most people see is library clerks working at the front desk, and mistakenly assume that everyone there is a librarian who spends all day checking out books.  If the reference librarian is sitting at an adjoined desk, he or she may blend in seamlessly with clerical workers.  What most people do not understand is that a librarian is part M.B.A., part scientist and part educator.  It is an intellectual job as much as it is a task-oriented job.

Librarians tend to be less assuming people. We are dedicated to our job and others-focused.  Perhaps we need to take a cue from Whitman and sound our "barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world" a little more.

Kudos for Solos

Solo librarians have a lot to manage.  Everyday there are books to check out, reference questions to answer, cataloging to do, books to process,  books to shelve, books to repair and a hundred other things.  There are reports to write, statistics to analyze, licenses to negotiate, budgets to manage, development projects to manage, and funding to raise all while assuring that we are exceeding the standards of our industry. Added to all of the tasks that need to be done, librarians need to be educators, citation experts, authorities on copyright and plagiarism, gurus for technology.  Lucky solo librarians may have assistants or student workers, but at a small school one person may have to do more. It is like being a ringleader at a crazy circus.  Libraries are complex environments, and it takes a skilled leader to make them successful. If it sounds impossible, be thankful for the solo librarians who provide all of these services every day.

Numbers

I was reminded today about the importance of people. We often have to justify our libraries in terms of numbers.  It seems like we are always crunching numbers to show how we are doing.  But if those numbers are not tied to people, then they are meaningless.  It is easy for us to get distracted from the qualitative nature of what we do.  The student working on a paper is not that worried about our statistics.  He wants answers and a good encounter.  There is that saying, "Keep the main thing the main thing."  Our main thing is service.  We still need our statistics, but they must come in second to our patrons.

Technology is a part of our lives now.  In libraries we are inundated with news of new resources, devices and formats.  As soon as we invest in one, it seems to change and become obsolete.  How are we to decide which technologies to use?

There are two approaches.  The first looks at all the cool new technology and asks, "How can we use these?"  This approach starts with a technology and then builds policy and services around it.  As a result, if asked why they use a particular technology, they may respond that everyone is using it, or that it is just cool.

The approach that I like best is what we see in Instructional Design.  It asks. "What is our objective," then asks, "what technology best serves this objective."  Those who favor this approach to technology see technology as a means to an end.  In this way, the use of technologies is more strategic.

Technology is a tool to serve us.  We should  not be slaves to technology. In the end, we cannot use every social networking site, every format or every new thing that comes along.  We have to be judicious.