Are libraries that far behind?
Recently I participated in a two-day strategy session for my library. We do this every year and it is a time to understand where we are now, what we’ve accomplished in the past year, and what we need to do to prepare for the next several months. It is especially a time when we focus on our users’ needs and try to understand and prepare for their needs. During one of the sessions, I had an interesting conversation with the person who manages the IT side of things in the library. He is not a librarian by profession; rather, he has spent more than a dozen years in the IT business at this same company. But he is always interested in what is happening in the library world and he is proactive about learning and gathering information about technology changes in libraries. Right now he is participating in an online LIS class, in fact. This is what led to our conversation.
Basically he told me that other people in his class spend a lot of time fretting about “how far behind” libraries are, technologically. He told me that he spoke up and said, basically, “Hey, I understand your concerns, but you need to know that you are actually way ahead of just about everyone else!” I think he has a point. I think we as a profession are ahead of most others. His background is in business and now that I have spent time in a corporate environment, I can definitely appreciate his perspective. Trust me, just because you might work in a large corporation does not mean that there is a lot of money or time devoted to technology! In fact, a lot of “corporate think” seems designed to stifle and thwart any possible technological innovation.
So next time you get frustrated with your lack of resources, or the lack of interest among your colleagues for technology and innovation, just think about it. Sure, I too get really frustrated with technological backwardness, but it’s all relative. I suggest that you set aside time in your library organization on a regular basis to try to feel the pulse of your users and to openly speculate on what might be needed next. You may discover that you are just a bit too far ahead of them. That, in my opinion, can be just as bad as being too far behind.
