Each one teach one
Jason Griffey has a great post on the ALA TechSource blog about teaching others about new technologies and the gaps in what different librarian know about technologies. Several things struck me about Jason’s post. The first was Jason’s and several other geek librarian folks unending willingness to share their knowledge and experiences with others. This is such a powerful thing and I think one of the best ways we learn new stuff. I love talking to my geek librarian friends about new tech. I’ll never forgot DLK letting me try out our library website on his iPhone or quizzing Jason at length about his Kindle.
Because of my blog and writing, I also often get questions about technology and libraries. Some I can answer, some I don’t feel comfortable doing so and try to forward the person to a more appropriate contact. I really enjoy these interaction as well, especially when I can share a piece of software or hardware with someone that I think is trivial but for them it is a big deal. I’m genuinely surprised by what technologies my colleagues are and are not familiar with.
The idea of each one teach one is dear to my heart. The basic idea is to share what you know with others. So everyone who gets shown something new needs to find someone and show them something new. You’d be surprise how extremely effective this type of one-on-one instruction is. I’ve found it much more successful in getting librarians to adopt our CMS if a non-system person shows them how to use it.
Some of this is us geeks get too geeky for our own good sometimes. Some of it is that our reputation makes us less approachable. But the truth is most of us don’t have innate technical knowledge, we are tinkers at heart. This means we play with stuff and we like to help others play with stuff.
One thing I really like that my library is doing to encourage innovation and playing is rewarding microgrants to staff and librarian to further our strategic directions. I received word yesterday that the microgrant proposal that I’m the team leader on was accepted. The money will fund the purchase of iPod Touchs for us to use to pilot mobile services. The best thing about the grant is that the majority of the hardware will be in the hands of Public Services staff. Web Services will only have 1 iPod to share among ourselves. I see this as a good thing because it will expose our librarian to a new technology that many of our students are using. They will get the experience of playing with the technology themselves and evaluating how it does or doesn’t meet their needs.
If we could do more of this in librarianship maybe there would be less of an innovation gap between libraries and librarians. In the meantime, we all need to do our part and share our knowledge and maybe even toys with others. Everyone will be reacher for the experience