Comments on: From tech to tome: spanning the gulf http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/08/from-tech-to-tome-spanning-the-gulf/ A library-geek blog Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:58:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: ulo.tricho.us » Presenting the IAS Television Showcase http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/08/from-tech-to-tome-spanning-the-gulf/#comment-249 ulo.tricho.us » Presenting the IAS Television Showcase Sat, 11 Mar 2006 03:58:34 +0000 http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/08/from-tech-to-tome-spanning-the-gulf/#comment-249 [...] John’s brilliant post skipped over a critical gulf-spanning technique, one that I would have thought he would have included, as he has personal experience with the approach: [...] […] John’s brilliant post skipped over a critical gulf-spanning technique, one that I would have thought he would have included, as he has personal experience with the approach: […]

]]> By: Liam Hegarty http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/08/from-tech-to-tome-spanning-the-gulf/#comment-246 Liam Hegarty Fri, 10 Mar 2006 00:23:55 +0000 http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/08/from-tech-to-tome-spanning-the-gulf/#comment-246 I, too, thought your comments were great. I am a front-line librarian in a smaller library which is part of a county-wide consortium. Here the IT people are totally isolated from the staff. They implement technological "improvements" without notifying anyone. Any comments we have about usability (broken back buttons, multiple windows opening, etc.) disappear into a black hole and are not acted upon. Part of the problem is that any contact with IT has to go up the ladder to my library director who then has to convey it to the system etc etc. My director is not close-minded, but neither is she a "techie." Two years ago I suggested setting up a wiki for book groups. "you mean anybody can post anything?" she asked. "Sorta," I replied but that was that. I'm not a techie either but I do the web page so now I'm the one people call when they've forgotten to plug in the printer. Thanks for letting me rant (pant, pant). Do you want to move to Westchester County? I, too, thought your comments were great. I am a front-line librarian in a smaller library which is part of a county-wide consortium. Here the IT people are totally isolated from the staff. They implement technological “improvements” without notifying anyone. Any comments we have about usability (broken back buttons, multiple windows opening, etc.) disappear into a black hole and are not acted upon. Part of the problem is that any contact with IT has to go up the ladder to my library director who then has to convey it to the system etc etc. My director is not close-minded, but neither is she a “techie.” Two years ago I suggested setting up a wiki for book groups. “you mean anybody can post anything?” she asked. “Sorta,” I replied but that was that.

I’m not a techie either but I do the web page so now I’m the one people call when they’ve forgotten to plug in the printer.

Thanks for letting me rant (pant, pant). Do you want to move to Westchester County?

]]> By: john http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/08/from-tech-to-tome-spanning-the-gulf/#comment-245 john Thu, 09 Mar 2006 18:50:08 +0000 http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/08/from-tech-to-tome-spanning-the-gulf/#comment-245 Bob, Coming from the IT side, I can say that having a "power user" like yourself around can be a great asset as you have essentially become a conduit between low and high tech folks. The fact that you can bridge that gap does, as you say, allow you to be "sitting pretty." It sounds like you're pretty good at navigating the politics as well, which is a great skill. The problem is, as you allude to, there really ought not be politics to begin with and it would benefit everyone involved to do away with all the nonsense. John Bob,
Coming from the IT side, I can say that having a “power user” like yourself around can be a great asset as you have essentially become a conduit between low and high tech folks. The fact that you can bridge that gap does, as you say, allow you to be “sitting pretty.”

It sounds like you’re pretty good at navigating the politics as well, which is a great skill. The problem is, as you allude to, there really ought not be politics to begin with and it would benefit everyone involved to do away with all the nonsense.

John

]]> By: Bob Hassett http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/08/from-tech-to-tome-spanning-the-gulf/#comment-244 Bob Hassett Thu, 09 Mar 2006 18:37:38 +0000 http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/08/from-tech-to-tome-spanning-the-gulf/#comment-244 Thank you very much for this thoughtful, incisive post. It ought to be common sense that the people who build the tools and the people who use the tools need to be on the same team. Sadly this is too often not the case. In my experience as a school librarian, being friendly and open with the IT people has made for possibly the most significant efficiency I have encountered (of course, being friendly and open with everybody is, I find, generally the best course for success in every walk, but that's for a broader digression). One of the very first things I did when I arrived at my current school was to cozy up to the school-based technology people -- in part because I wanted to have as much freedom as possible to goose up the website, but also because experience tells me that a lot of what I do will require some support from one or both of them (in schools information technology and instructional technology are often highly distinct entities, essentially hardware people and software/instruction people, reporting to separate upstream departments that often do not themselves communicate particularly well). In a nutshell, both of these people were so grateful that I knew a little bit about how to run a computer network and was willing to share my toys that they gave me all kinds of permissions on the system and on my laptop that allows me to do things the teachers commonly cannot (like install software to play around with). When I started re-designing the library's website, I was asked to redesign the entire school website ASAP because it had become a source of embarrassment to the principal and neither of them knew much HTML. I still haven't gotten to the library site, but I've got the school's site up and, even though it's a very simple, static, XHTML/CSS site, people are completely blown away, just because it doesn't look like garbage. Which gives me even more freedom to start doing what I want to do, within the (significant) confines of the larger school system, a massive bureaucratic entity that is fairly tech-forward, but which still refuses to allow anything the support team downtown doesn't support (like PHP or MySQL -- very frustrating). So that's my next task, getting friendly with the decision-makers in the concrete bunker. In addition to all this, now teachers start to see me as a techologically savvy person who speaks plain English. Which gives them another excuse to come by the library and me another hook to get them to talk with me about their lessons and how I can help. And I'm sitting pretty because when all they have to do is gripe about "my printer won't print," I can tell them they'll need to go talk to the IT people about that. Thank you very much for this thoughtful, incisive post. It ought to be common sense that the people who build the tools and the people who use the tools need to be on the same team. Sadly this is too often not the case.

In my experience as a school librarian, being friendly and open with the IT people has made for possibly the most significant efficiency I have encountered (of course, being friendly and open with everybody is, I find, generally the best course for success in every walk, but that’s for a broader digression).

One of the very first things I did when I arrived at my current school was to cozy up to the school-based technology people — in part because I wanted to have as much freedom as possible to goose up the website, but also because experience tells me that a lot of what I do will require some support from one or both of them (in schools information technology and instructional technology are often highly distinct entities, essentially hardware people and software/instruction people, reporting to separate upstream departments that often do not themselves communicate particularly well). In a nutshell, both of these people were so grateful that I knew a little bit about how to run a computer network and was willing to share my toys that they gave me all kinds of permissions on the system and on my laptop that allows me to do things the teachers commonly cannot (like install software to play around with). When I started re-designing the library’s website, I was asked to redesign the entire school website ASAP because it had become a source of embarrassment to the principal and neither of them knew much HTML. I still haven’t gotten to the library site, but I’ve got the school’s site up and, even though it’s a very simple, static, XHTML/CSS site, people are completely blown away, just because it doesn’t look like garbage. Which gives me even more freedom to start doing what I want to do, within the (significant) confines of the larger school system, a massive bureaucratic entity that is fairly tech-forward, but which still refuses to allow anything the support team downtown doesn’t support (like PHP or MySQL — very frustrating). So that’s my next task, getting friendly with the decision-makers in the concrete bunker.

In addition to all this, now teachers start to see me as a techologically savvy person who speaks plain English. Which gives them another excuse to come by the library and me another hook to get them to talk with me about their lessons and how I can help. And I’m sitting pretty because when all they have to do is gripe about “my printer won’t print,” I can tell them they’ll need to go talk to the IT people about that.

]]> By: madeleine http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/08/from-tech-to-tome-spanning-the-gulf/#comment-243 madeleine Thu, 09 Mar 2006 15:40:24 +0000 http://www.blyberg.net/2006/03/08/from-tech-to-tome-spanning-the-gulf/#comment-243 What a great post! More of us need to read this in order to reach across the aisle. What a great post! More of us need to read this in order to reach across the aisle.

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