Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Research Blogs -> Stephen's Lighthouse

Legal Research

: Stephen's Lighthouse

The Learning Rollercoaster

Kathryn Greenhill, one of my favourite Australian librarians, has written an amazing presentation for her Educause presentation (Fabulous slides too - wish I was there):

Why learning about Emerging Technologies is part of every librarian's Job

The intro pictures are very powerful!

Here's some of her bullets:

1. Performing core business better

2. Increased productivity

3. Gaining international perspective

4. Finding out what other libraries are doing

5. Understanding all formats of information

6. Our skills are useful - metadata, tagging, indexing, data mining

7. Dealing with Vendors

8. Dealing with IT departments

9. Understanding redefinition of our core concerns

10. Managing tech-savvy users

11. Match user needs to new possibilities

12. Professional clients required to keep up

13. Experimentation increases skills

14. Fun

15. Trend watching

16. Repurposing our traditional skills

17. Understanding technical background when dealing with vendors

18. Being prepared for when a tool moves out of early adoption phase

19. Understanding the redefinition of our core business

20. No-one else knows your users as well as you do

21. Buddy up - mentor

22. Ask a teen

23. Can?t predict the future?-so experimentation is insurance

24. Crowds are fickle

25. Collaborate better

26. Be the expert

A valid expectation of librarian is that we are information professionals and can acquire the knowledge we don't already know.

Do other professionals get to say "I don't have time"?

Does the doctor say I'll just have to let that patient die - I don't have time to keep up?

Does the CPA say I'll just use the auditing standards from 1999. I don't have time to keep up?

Does the pharmacist say I haven't had time to learn the contra-indications for the last few years of new drugs?

How would you feel as you stand in jail and your lawyer says I didn't have time to learn the changes in the law?

Professionals don't get to say oooops.

As THE professionals for the information and knowledge based economy, we have to make time, as a team.

It's a continuous learning world now!

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on May 11, 2009 (boomark / email).