BIBLIOTHEKE

Yet another article on the disconnect between libraries and today’s youth (bugmenot probably required). Being in my late 20’s myself, it’s really difficult for me to figure out why librarians have such a problem understanding the information needs of young folks. This is a demographic that has the most mallible tastes. This same age group that librarians think are so hard to please make up the most receptive and virgin group of folks in the online world.

Having an ipod is not ‘techie.’ Having a blog (or any variation thereof) isn’t either. Far from it. The belief that things like these are ‘techie’ needs to be dispelled with a quickness. Most of the things these kids are into are not complicated and do not require technical knowledge. Librarians who feel these toys are intimidating should really try to get over the superficial appearance and recognize that the whole point of these electronics is that they are actually easier to deal with and understand than the tools that preceeded them. Having an ipod means you no longer have to worry about changing the CD. It’s a simple convenience. In fact, the ipod itself is so popular largely because it is dead simple to use. Services like Blogger are just another step in making online publishing universal and accessible to even the most technologically illiterate among us.

Part of the gulf I see in my day-to-day life in a library is a disconnect between librarians and younger patrons specifically because librarians simply aren’t interested in new technology. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with that. I, for one, am not interested in learning German. I’m also not interested enough in book binding to go learn how to do it myself. We all have our roles and librarians shouldn’t push themselves so hard to dive into all aspects of tech if it doesn’t interest them. It just makes those folks look clumsy. But taking a few minutes to set up a blog on blogger in an effort to understand the process is so simple and painless that avoiding it is silly.

I’ve noted before that, from what I can tell, the biggest reason that young folks don’t realize the significance of libraries is because libraries and librarians don’t have a significantly visible online presence. In my online travels, there seem to be more librarians talking to other librarians about stuff that companies are doing than there are librarians talking to non-librarians and making cool new information tools for the public to use. Library web sites are hard to use and non-standard. In online discussions, I have never seen a librarian assuming that role by providing factual information. Finally, I think librarians are overextending themselves. More on that in future posts.

This entry was posted by William J Melody @ 12:38 pm and is filed under Library. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Note that there may be a delay when posting your comment because continued comment spam has forced me to turn on partial moderation.