Totally divorced from reality?
Wednesday, March 1, 2006 at 01:36PM This response to my blog entry "Why librarians should be in charge of educational technology" summarizes feelings I hear a lot:
I think that the person you describe should be determined by the characteristics not the job title. If a person has all of the characteristics you describe, they are perfect for implementing technology.
There are unfortunately, some librarians who are so difficult to work with and short sighted that they will not implement a new technology until it was written about in their favorite library journal five years a go.
I agree with your characteristics but not necessarily the job title assigned with those characteristics. I'm sure in your school, it is you. However, in my school it wouldn't be.
Quite a few people had a similar response - "You sure aren't describing MY librarian as a potential tech partner!" I hear this a lot when talking to teachers and administrators. Obviously my experiences and perceptions of school librarians aren't the same as others. Am I totally divorced from reality?
The librarians I work with are probably among the most competent, caring, progressive, and tech-savvy people I know. Granted, I DO
only work with the ones in my district (who I have helped hired), the ones who attend my workshops, and ones who I meet and work with in my professional organizations. The creme de la creme of the library field, perhaps? I can honestly say that most of the librarians I know are, well, hot!
So here is my question: Is the library field, more than any other, divided between the competent and incompetent? It's not like if I said, "My dentist is really good since he uses anesthetic" that people would respond, "Yeah, well maybe your dentist does, but ours still gives you a slug of whiskey and pulls the tooth with a rusty pair of pliers." Or if I said, "My account files my taxes online," you'd say, "My accountant? He doesn't even own a computer!"
So why do I think "competence" when I think "librarian" and the rest of the world thinks I'm insane?
Reader Comments (7)
In my short 10 years of playing this game, my understanding librarians is probably the thing that has changed the most.
I've played with about 20 in my time...I know a handful of others. The thing that separates the really good from the really bad is that the good tend to acknowledge their own obsolescence and have worked hard to embrace, adapt, and reinvent. This isn't a "tech good, books bad" statement or vice versa. Those that can take both and make "different" are the ones that stand out.
I have the same issues with teachers that have not a clue how to attach a file to an email (some that don't even know you can do that).
Consider yourself lucky, NO VERY LUCKY, that your school district trains people in more than surface tech skills and why they are important and valuable. The reason my librarian is not the person for this job is that she gets zero training in tech outside of the bare minimum she needs to know to run the software that checks books out - and she gets very little support and she struggles - tech knowledge is not on the list of requirements for the job - is that her fault? It's also not on the list for teachers by the way - isn't that sad?
I just don't see occupations (outside education) resisting change as much.
Possibly because the banker, dentist or auto mechanic would all be out of business if they didn't change!
Doug
Try teaching spelling without giving weekly spelling tests - even though we have 40 years of research that shows it is an ineffective technique- at some schools (my wife's for example) - and watch how fast you'll have parents in your room demanding hard spelling tests to challenge their child because that's what they did in school.
Teachers often buck up against alot of resistance to change - and change is hard so it's a good excuse not to. However, I don't want to suggest this is the only roadblock, but it seems to be a large one.
I don't have an answer only that I try hard to balance.
I've known many excellent elementary librarians who make the case that their primary mission is improving reading attitudes and abilities - and it is a good case!
Doug
She is not, however, well versed in technology. She is extremely opposed to reading bloglines or RSS anything and doesn't even want to hear about it. I'm glad she does what she does well. I think, perhaps, that the job definition of libraries should evolve.
For example, the railroad business has not lived up to its potential because they thought they were in..well.. the railroad business. If they had seen that they were in the transportation business they would have diversified into automobiles, etc. They mistook their purpose and they missed out.
It seems to me that libraries should be places for effective archiving and dissemination of information. Many librarians define themselves as a "keeper of the sacred scrolls" and "asset inventory tracker" rather than the trailblazer of effective information dissemination.
Libraries are no longer an island unto themselves but rather part of the ecosystem of information and should move towards that.
Just a thought from a non-librarian who respects librarians greatly. I just wish they'd see their purpose a little differently.