losing ground

[Sara Weissman/Morris Cty Library]

  For nearly *anything* new you want to try in a library, try this:
  "We want to try this for six months...what are your concerns?" People
  react less phobically to a trial than to what they might perceive,
  correctly or not, as an edict.//Two years ago, in an Internet workshop
  for librarians, I said "It's tough to get 20 years into what you think
  has been a good and productive career and suddenly be told you don't
  know what you are doing because you don't know the Internet." I was
  not prepared for the audible gasp that shot across the room...*many*
  of the people sitting there felt precisely that. My experiences as
  trainer have led me to incorporate Toffler (Future Shock turns out to
  have been about the Internet!) and Galbraith on learning styles into
  my course at Rutgers. I want my students to be comfortable knowing
  that they can learn nearly anything when/as they have to, for that
  I think is the rising tide of the profession. (Thump! jumps off sopabox.)