[Web4lib] Skillset for new librarians

[Cary Gordon]

I think that all library school students should be required to build
their own ILS from scratch, including building the server.

Well, maybe not...

Actually, I think that newly minted librarians should have a good idea
of how software works, including a solid grounding in networking and
databases, along with some exposure to programming. I think librarian
training should focus more on and overview than on specific
technologies, and while I think that markup languages will be with us
for a long time, specific technologies like HTML and RSS are less
important, and should not be part of a core curriculum. When I was an
undergrad, IBM Selectrics and Xerox machines were cutting edge tech. I
am pretty sure that any tech we are using today will be about as
relevant in 20 years as the flying spot scanner is today.

I came to library school late with a head (and resume) full of
technology, and I probably benefited most from the fundamentals in
information organization and cataloging. Just gaining an understanding
of indexing in the context of libraries was worth the price of
admission.

I do think that courses in cutting edge tech like HTML5 should be
offered, as well as graduate level classes in database and network
design. I just don't think that they should be required.

Thanks,

Cary

On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 9:08 AM, Thomas Edelblute <TEdelblute at anaheim.net> wrote:
> And a number of these students, while not going on to become system managers or web developers, will go on to become supervisors and managers where they need to make decisions about technology.  So this sounds like you are giving them a good grounding for that.
>
> Thomas Edelblute
> Public Access Systems Coordinator
> Anaheim Public Library
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Mutch, Andrew
> Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2011 5:45 AM
> To: web4lib at webjunction.org
> Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Skillset for new librarians
>
>
> "As a recent (May '10) MLIS grad, my school (Wayne State) decreed,
> starting with my incoming class, we're to take a "intro to technology"
> class, if you will, that is to cover a lot of the basic groundwork on MS
> Office/OpenOffice, HTML/CSS, lan/wan and hardware/software. Kind of a
> plethora of a lot of things into a single class designed to give
> introduction to things many of these students have not seen or heard of
> before but will need to know as they go deep into librarination. The
> idea is great in theory, but in practice it was an utter nightmare."
>
> This was a great class for me - not as a student but as one of the
> sources for students working on their assignment related to real-world
> examples of computer networks in libraries. Every few months, one or two
> students taking the class would contact the library looking to talk to
> the tech person about "network topology" and "processor speeds". After
> getting this request a couple of times, I created a Technology
> Assessment for our library that listed all of our network
> infrastructure, PC specs, application usage, etc. in a single document
> that I shared with the student. It was a nice to have that push to put
> together a lot of information that I had in various documents and
> spreadsheets and to keep it updated regularly. I'm not sure how much the
> students got out of the document but it's been handy for reports, grant
> applications, etc. where I need to be able to quickly reference the
> current state of my computer network.
>
> I did make the students come in and talk to me about the document and
> gave them a tour of the library and specifically the server room so that
> they could see in person what the document described. Like Lisa, I had
> the impression that a lot of the students had a very cursory
> understanding of the concepts they were asking questions about and I
> wondered how much they were getting out of a course that seemed to cover
> so much ground. I think it was good exposure for the students to
> understand the complexity of the networks that exist in our libraries
> and how much goes into supporting that. But I can see them being washed
> over by the detail of covering that range of technology topics in a
> single course.
>
> Andrew Mutch
> Waterford Township Public Library
> Waterford, MI
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Cary Gordon
The Cherry Hill Company
http://chillco.com