jonathan: completely different topic, but did you get my reply of
september 1st?
hope you're well!
taco
On 9 sep 2008, at 22:33, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
> 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
--
Taco Ekkel
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Received on Wed Sep 10 2008 - 01:07:50 EDT