Skills for reference staff

[Janet Kaul]

I think it's pretty impractical to NOT learn how to do at least
basic computer troubleshooting, for the reasons outlined below. I
don't know about all of you, but my MLIS included information on
the treatment and preservation of books, as they were the major
tool for transmitting information. Now computers have to be included
in that category, so everyone had better learn the same minimal
information about them!

We also have to be careful we're not masking fear of the unknown with
exucuses such as a lack of time or inappropriate professional
direction.

-janet

> From web4lib at library.berkeley.edu  Thu Aug  7 13:17:39 1997
> Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 13:16:42 -0700
> Reply-To: shaffer at uic.edu
> Originator: web4lib at library.berkeley.edu
> Sender: web4lib at library.berkeley.edu
> From: Chris Shaffer <shaffer at uic.edu>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
> Subject: Re: Skills for reference staff
> X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
> X-Comment: Web4Lib Information - http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Web4Lib/
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> 
> At 11:45 AM 8/7/97 -0700, Ruth Hartman wrote:
> >An interesting issue has surfaced on Cristal-ed, and I'm curious as to how
> >people on this list would respond.  How much technology should a reference
> >person be expected to learn?  The argument of some staff is that they need
> >only be able to use the computer to access material, but anything
> >"mechanical" is not their responsibility.  Should they be expected to do
> >maintenance, rebooting, simple repair, etc.?
> 
> I'd say that depends on the library and the situation.  Ask yourself these
> questions:  
> 
> "If library staff can't fix technical problems, how long will it be until
> it gets repaired?" and "Will having this computer down that long seriously
> inconvenience library patrons?"
> 
> If the answers are "a long time" and "yes" then library staff should
> probably be trained to fix the computers.  Still, it's a judgement call.
> 
> -----
> "Letters are history.  They are the savored and saved past, the 
> instigators of memory.  Telephone calls are the ephemeral present, 
> and play a part only in the immediate future."  --Doris Grumbach
> Chris Shaffer     shaffer at uic.edu     http://www.uic.edu/~shaffer/
>