Keynote

The keynote speaker, Susan Singleton of CARLI, at the Mobius consortium conference quoted several times from Karen Schneider's meme/manifesto, The User is not Broken, from her Free Range Librarian blog. I see that I wasn't the only person this week to hear it brought up at a conference (Nicole Engard at What I Learned Today on the PALINET Regional Spring Meeting).

Susan Singleton noted that most of what librarians think of as big changes in our libraries are not noticeable to our users. She says to start asking ourselves, "does anyone outside of the library care?"

She had several points of advice--I think I got them all.

• Get over our sense of superiority. At best, we'll be patrons' collaborators.



• Realize that our frustration with vendors is partly our fault--what we have is what libraries wanted. Or, at least, it's what we wanted fifteen years ago.



• When designing systems, think like a 5-year old. I want it now. I want it done. I want something that is mine (customizable).



• Technology is a tool, not an end. Like a plastic serving spoon, it's going to break and we'll need another tool.



• Comfort ourselves that we did this to ourselves by defining, 30 to 40 years ago, that libraries are information places. But libraries have always been more than that. Library as place. Library as a point on a patron's path to knowledge and wisdom.



• Make sure we're not wasting time and resources on small changes--work on the things that someone outside the library cares about.



• Don't take ourselves too seriously. Deal with changes using humor.

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