NextGen Inner Moxie

This morning I saw this Library Journal post from Lia Friedman and Char Booth. <3 it!!
For me, it nicely summarized the feelings I've had a lot lately and over the past few months:

1) the whole misconception that others have that your age is directly proportional to your interest or savviness with technology. SO NOT TRUE. Granted, younger people are generally more comfortable with technology, but it's an over generalization that young = good/interested in technology. I encounter plenty of students that outwardly say they are technophobes. We see plenty of questions at our service desks that indicate many students don't fully understand technology even though they use it heavily. And vice versa-plenty of folks of varying ages that are whizzes with technology. It makes me a little sad when 'more experienced' librarians write themselves off from technology just because of their age.

2) Our risk adverse culture. WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS. I'm not entirely sure how we go about creating institutional change that increases risk taking, but I'd love to talk about it with you if you have ideas. this is an area we NEED to work on. I'm so glad we wrote it into our strategic plan. This article has inspired me to go out and just try some stuff on my own...even though we are a very committee heavy organization and profession. Which leads me to...

3) Committees...Hmmm...I have conflicting thoughts here. As a profession, librarians are a very collaborative folk. This is one characteristic that drew me to the profession. However, we tend to go overboard with it to the point where it bogs down progress. A colleague says we actually fetishize it. This is why I love the hot team approach that ETS uses. It's the 'somewhere in between' of doing your own thing and an officially sanctioned committee. If we start using a hot team-type approach in libraryland (which I hope we do), we'll need to be careful and aware not to slip into old habits.

that's all for now. that feels like a lot since I haven't blogged in a while....phew!