Tomasz Neugebauer wrote:
> top of the agenda for many libraries, for many reasons. I listed one such reason: unfortunately, the question of who is responsible for library IT development - librarians or software engineers - is still problematic.
>
You can be both a librarian and a software engineer. You can also be a
software engineer who is committed to and understands the unique
problems of libraries without having a library degree; and you can be a
librarian who understands how to speak techie and plan, project manage,
and evaluate technical projects without being a software engineer.
There are many of us who have both those competencies who participate in
communities like code4lib. There aren't nearly enough of us who have
both those competencies working in libraries in general. I think that's
what libraries really need more of. And it is too most definitely under
the control of libraries though, in terms of who they hire, what
qualifications they look for, what staff development opportunities they
provide or expect, etc.
The modern library _is_, in my opinion, a type of IT organization. If
the people making the decisions about what software to purchase, how to
allocate resources generally, who to hire or fire or promote, and how to
run the organization generally---don't understand technology and don't
particularly want to understand technology--that's what really puts us
in trouble. But that too is under _somebody's_ control. Just not mine.
Jonathan
Received on Tue Sep 09 2008 - 14:57:29 EDT