Technology Expo

Yesterday I went to the Technology Expo sponsored by the St. Louis Regional Library Network. I attended three workshops and the keynote speech at lunch, so I’ll probably blog about what I learned over the next several days. This is what Spring Break is for, right? Take a break from library classes so that I can go to library classes?

The keynote speaker was Stephanie Tolson, Dean of the Learning Resource Center at St. Charles Community College. She spoke about how librarians can be a catalyst for change in the arena of technology. She had three Ps to follow:

• Preparation. This is the second time in less than a week that I’ve been surprised by how highly valued planning is in the library world. Note to self: feature planning skills more prominently on next version of resume.


• Partnership. Get buy-in from other entities on the campus. Be on committees that make decisions about technology.


• Persistence. When a plan isn’t accepted the first time you present it, file it away for another day. She told a story about being in a meeting where someone needed ideas to spend money in short order and she was ready to respond to the request with one of her plans.

I liked this quote she gave from Peter Drucker, “the best way to predict the future is to create it.”

And I liked the advice to become someone who writes grants requests—an institution is always going to value employees who bring in money. This might be a good pursuit for me in the next few months—become familiar with grant-making organizations that might fund projects I would enjoy doing. I don’t know much about it, but a friend of mine, who has received a grant, gave a presentation on it for our Special Libraries class and I still have those notes filed away somewhere.     #

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