Sarah,
My inclination is to suggest you try to approach it from bottom up.
Buy a Ruby, Python, PERL or PHP book in the "Dummies" series and learn
enough programming to make you dangerous. I'd suggest something that
gets you into databases quickly. Most people don't realize how very
much programming a smart, organized person can learn in just a few
days. Once you have that, and have worked on a few fun projects of
your own, you can progress "up" to the sorts of questions you're
answering. Once you know what programming is, XML is cake, and RDA
just a flavor of cake.
I'm wary of the opposite way, where you try to learn technology from
the top down. Your knowledge then will always be tentative—a sort of
hearsay knowledge. You may acquire some knowledge, but you won't have
the authority to defend it. And don't librarians like authority? :)
Certainly you won't have a "skill" to put on your resume (and which,
outside libraries, could earn you twice your current salary). And you
certainly won't have a chance of discovering a new intellectual
passion.
Maybe, however, this is just how I learn. I'm a guy who took years of
dead languages because I couldn't stand the "hearsay experience" of
Aeschylus and Plautus in English. Since I didn't become an academic,
that time was largely wasted...
Do others think a top-down approach to technological knowledge is as
good or better than a bottom-up one?
Tim
Received on Fri Apr 16 2010 - 14:25:01 EDT