Library Revolution

Michael Stephens blogged recently about librarians being timid, a theme Michael Casey wrote on in The Transparent Library.

To quote the article,

…getting new initiatives off the ground sometimes seems to need an act of God, simply because new services mean change. For some librarians, change represents the potential to fail. For others, it’s a fear of success, that a new service might be too popular and draw too many people.

This is something I struggle with all the time when working with librarians on new initiatives, so it really struck a nerve with me.

Actually, it really gave me one of those “AHA!” moments. He’s right. Most of the librarians I work with and have trouble motivating to try anything new aren’t afraid of failure at all. It’s success that scares them to death.

Then I saw this commercial during the Mets braodcast:

I think that this is exactly what we are like a lot of the time.

Oh my God, if we succeed in this new project, we’ll have to deal with the consequences! We’ll have to make decisions, set new priorities, and (gasp!) make some changes!

I don’t mean to belittle the feeling. It’s potentially overwhelming. Especially if we start succeeding all the time.

But as the guy in the commercial sums it up, “Isn’t that kind of the idea?”

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Etc., Library Administration, Library Service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.