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Tim said:
"I'm very much in favor of libraries doing IT internally, as long as
they understand they're doing *IT*. So long as they think they're
doing some special "Library IT," they'll keep falling behind-and being
preyed on by the external vendors willing to facilitate and perpetuate
the dysfunction."
I'm not sure what exactly this means - it's a distinction without a difference. Why wouldn't a librarian who does IT work understand that he is doing IT work?
All of the problems you mention (Z39.50, MARC, ILSes) are real and are a true hindrance, and there are reasons why these things were adopted in the first place. Put aside for a moment the fact that libraries began to automate and exchange data before most of the "common IT tools" you allude to were common, the fact is that librarians need IT skills to transform antiquated systems and practices and to *imagine* and implement new services which leverage the capabilities of "common IT tools".
While we can't teach imagination, we can teach librarians skills that will help facilitate the creation of new library tools and services. Understanding the research habits and needs of our patrons is a core strength of librarians - not of non-librarian IT people. We cannot, for example, sit around and wait for our IT consultants and/or our IT department to come up with a new mashup that might help economics students research or visualize a particular concept. It's not going to happen.
The point is that the library, not the IT department, is the fulcrum for the research and information needs of our users. Hiring an IT consultant to help you rid yourself of Z30.50 and move to Web services is fine. But library users look to us to help them navigate the chaos of information and knowledge available to them. If we don't understand how this stuff works, we will never be able to help our users understand. If, because our IT skills are extremely limited, we as librarians can't imagine how new "common" technologies might be employed to cut down on the noise and provide focused, appropriate services to our patrons, we are indeed perpetuating the dysfunction.
Received on Wed Sep 24 2008 - 12:28:17 EDT