10/01/2004 12:40:49 PM|||Brian Fending||| So I've got some opinions about libraries. This is from the "Social Landscape" section of the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) non-profit's excellent report, "2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition."
Librarian yearns to see more of Information Consumer who is apathetic or indifferent to the wishes of Librarian. Librarian tries to be more accommodating by renovating the Home Page to be more attractive to Information Consumer who finds the changes pleasant enough. But while Librarian was busy sprucing up the Home Page—moving things from here to there and recovering the worn upholstery—Information Consumer has been hanging out at the Information Mall. Now Information Consumer is critical of what seems to be old-fashioned, fussy—and boring—decorating at the Home Page. Librarian tells Information Consumer that the Information Mall is shallow and disorganized and that anything found there is possibly shoddy and not to be trusted. Information Consumer isn’t listening. Information Consumer is perfectly happy at the Information Mall.
As I said to the colleague who sent this (and some co-workers), this describes VERY accurately the last two years of my life and the professional doldrums from which I'm trying to escape by changing the nature of my job. In general, I hear, "this needs to be pushed on the homepage, front & center," or, "Can you add a button to the navigation for this?," rather than something like, "This resource needs to be promoted to XYZ target audiences. What's the best way to do that?"
I'm turning into a bigger & better supporter of full-scale Content Management Systems (CMSs), blogs being one of the very simplest forms of said Systems. The Wiki is a close second, and beyond that the flavors get, well, more flavorful. (?)
The biggest problem I face is executive buy-in. That and finding enough time to do enough research, test deploying, and presentation preparation to *get* that buy-in. I'm not the type of guy to say, "because I said so." (Refer to the first Bush-Kerry debate for good examples of that.) I'm reluctant to demand an audience and then say, "Trust me." Obviously, a CMS with the "Information Mall" customer mentioned above in mind is ideal. A system that allows for consistency AND flexibility can be developed. But I can't muster the courage to say, "Trust me, sign off, and I'll get it done," because I'm usually drowning in an organizational sea where EVERYBODY calls ME when something breaks, even though I'm just trying to do silly content updates and linkcheck reporting on top of doing some proprietary, ever-evolving modifications to a new online catalog search tool. The latter should be ALL I DO for WEEKS. And I'm not convinced I can get it done and do my job well. But there's only one of me, and developing the Next Generation is seeming more and more like a full-time job. A job which I can't morph mine into because, well, I'm doing my job.
If paradigms shift, I can see actually taking my inspiration from the above article and putting it into practice. Barring that, there's no hope but to spend an hour a week on this project or that until it's time to go home and eventually collect a pension. Somewhere down the road, I hope somebody looks at my planner and year-end accomplishment and says, "Hey - should we get him help to do that new website?"
Yeh, that'd be great.|||109665364955021200|||2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition [OR "Libraries & You"]