Library Revolution

Because of our new County Catalog design (out for the public next week!), I have been doing tons of training sessions lately, which have for the most part started some really great conversations I’m excited to continue in the future. I always find that I get some real food for thought from those little side discussions that inevitably come up in the training environment.

Some of the most interesting lately have come up through little digressions in the training concerning RSS feeds: what they are, how they work (in 50 words or less) and different ways they can be used. For the most part, the folks I have been working with who were not knowledgeable about feeds before seem really excited to learn more about them, and think of ways these might be beneficial in their lives. It’s been really fun to talk about and see how some librarian’s eyes just light up when you put somethig like that in simpkle, understandable terms.

But how about the conversation I had with one librarian the other day while doing one of our training sessions:

Me: So, how many people here are familiar with RSS feeds? (a few hands go up. not many.) OK, that’s great. For the rest of you, that’s fine. Let me just give you a quick explanation of what they are and what we’re going to be looking at.

Librarian in Front: (rolls eyes) I’m really not interested in this stuff. Do we have to talk about it now?

Me: Well, some of your colleagues seem interested, and it has to do with one of the new features in the catalog, so we’ll just be really fast on this one. (proceeds to explain RSS, and readers in a nutshell)

L.I.F.: (Cutting in) I think we have too much information already without this kind of stuff, too.

Me: You’re absolutely right. There IS too much information out there for us to sift through. But that’s exactly the point. This is a way to organize and process that information in a much more manageable way.

L.I.F.: I’m not really interested in organizing information. I have enough to do already, and this seems like a waste of time.

Me (in my mind): Really? You’re not interested in organizing information? Lady, you’re in the worng line of work.

Me (for real, out loud): Well, that’s OK, but for those of us who are really struggling with keeping informed without getting overwhelmed, I think that this is a great technology to learn about. But, of course, it’s not going to be for everybody.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 20th, 2008 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Library Technology. 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.