In addition to Alex's comments, I would add:
Marketing.
It's a great thing to be able to adapt what you already have to improve
the user experience and be able to recognize the new (and hopefully
practical) trends. It's completely another to sell your idea to
administration and other staff who would be affected by your
recommendations and decisions. Marketing to your boss, to your boss's
boss and higher, to your coworkers, to students and faculty (or whatever
audience is relevant for your company). Explain these new technologies
to people who aren't inherently fluent with words like "open source",
"discovery layer" and "integrated search". Explain it in such a way that
they feel enthused and invested in using a product. Communicate
regularly to people inside and outside your institution. Learn to love
usability testing and usage statistics. There's a saying "success breeds
success". Use other people's experiences to support and guide your
decisions and actions.
I left a job in marketing to be a librarian and swore I would never go
into anything like sales. Ironically, those skills are essential to
making my job work now.
Best of luck,
Marliese
(I've never been on Second Life, but I'm thinking about joining
Twitter)
Marliese Thomas
Database Enhancement Librarian
RBD Library
Auburn University
231 Mell Street
Auburn, AL 36849
334.844.8171
mst0001_at_auburn.edu
Received on Mon May 10 2010 - 10:07:29 EDT