New position in librarianship: Infoculturist

A well-respected colleague recently requested help writing a job decription for a new librarian role: Publisher of Community.  I couldn’t help but think about content creation and user-generated content.  I have been creating content for my school library for 20 years, through producing a weekly edited news show called “EETV” for Ethridge Elementary TV.  The show has evolved from old VHS format to DVD and mp4 (among other file types). So, content creation has been a part of librarianship for decades.  However, user-generated content shared online has been growing like crazy since Youtube launched.

The core values of librarianship promote acquisition of the best content available and much of the user-generated content we find online today hardly qualifies as even watchable.

Our culture is becoming, we all know, a participatory one.  The library stacks are no longer perceived as top dog in information.  What Melvil Dewey called “man’s heroic deeds” in the literature of the 800 section has been pushed back behind Pinterest and Instagram.

I enjoyed the blogpost from Michael Stephens contemplating new roles for librarians. The online name I chose for myself, Valibrarian, is out-dated but (I hope) remains quaint.  We do need new titles that emphasize services we provide with better nomenclature!  One of my favorite metaphors for a library is that of a garden. One of Ranganathan’s 5 laws for library science stated that “a library is a growing organism”. I am remindeed of how the gardener plants and weeds.  So, I thought about the word horticulturist or agriculturist.

Here’s a nomination for a librarian job title:  infoculturist.  Whaddaya think?  Any more ideas?

2P + CD = Rapport

Working on a panel presentation for the Texas Library Association Convention (Creating Alliances with the Overlapping Fields of IT and Librarianship) has given me a chance to contemplate the jurisdiction battle between these two perspectives.  For decades, I have listened to people argue about the “L” word and the “I” word.  (Library and Information– am I a librarian or an information specialist?  Do I work in a library or in the realm of information whether physical, digital, electronic, or augmented?) Librarians have found it imperative to embrace information technology, but we can’t all be experts in IT.

This week, my son told me about an encounter with an IT guy that really hit home.  As a computer program implementer, Ken has to install and teach individuals about an entirely new application on a regular basis.  Sometimes, the program installs and runs perfectly.  But, other times networking issues and numerous other problems arise.  Well, on this particular day, he installed the program and it didn’t work.  He tried the common troubleshooting methods, checking the networks for the particular client.  Suddenly, a guy who he hadn’t noticed came over and offered to help.  This IT guy just happened to be nearby at the moment.  Instead of having to place a work order and wait for help, the IT guy saved hours of wait time.  My son ended the anecdote by saying, “the guy was really cool.”

As I thought about how we all have our skills sets and areas of expertise– and yet we all rely heavily on the IT department, I asked Ken what made the guy cool.  He explained that the guy simply had a helpful attitude.  It was his disposition.

That word comes up in the 21st Century Learning Standards put out by the ALA American Association of School Librarians.  Learners today must have a disposition toward adaptation, critically evaluating content, and persistence in seeking ethical interaction in information communication.  The bullet point (1.2) is called Dispositions in Action.

The word disposition is a good choice.  In other words, our attitude still matters and always will!  Having knowledge and skills is essential, but equally essential is being willing to share and collaborate. So, I came up with an equation for building rapport with IT- or with anyone for that matter.  Two perspectives plus a collaborative disposition equals rapport.

2P + CD = Rapport

 

No ROI for me on social media

ROI (an economics term)

I find very little Return on Investment with the time spent on Facebook.  I have never accomplished much scrolling through the contributions.

Now Pinterest and Instagram are bidding for the attention of those of us uploading photos. Digital archiving is tricky.  Flickr was one of the first to provide a space for our photos. But, I still forget sometimes where I have placed my digital content.  Is it on Flickr, my phone, my flashdrive, my hardrive, my laptop, or ….(add digital device here)?

Maybe we all need librarian skills today!  We have to choose what to archive- what to put on our devices (not just photos but all of our digital files). We decide what to put in file folders or in the cloud.  Someday, it will all be available, so I suppose we need not worry.  If the Dewey Decimal System is dead (but still a great exercise in thinking critically about information systems and cataloging) and everything is available at the touch of a finger…what is important is choosing very wisely.  We must choose what is valuable because what is available will be overwhelming.

Trivial clutter adds nothing to my life- in fact it subtracts from my time.

Then, I must ask myself, what does add value to my life?

The essentials of being human—even though I know I have become a cyborg.

Poetry, Music

and maybe just taking a walk without anything digital at all.