Gen X Librarians: Leading From the Middle
Lisa Carlucci Thomas, Digital Services Librarian, Southern Connecticut State University
Karen Sobel, Reference & Instruction Librarian, University of Colorado Denver
Nina McHale, Web Librarian, University of Colorado Denver
Nina - Generation X and Technology
Generational Generalizations...
Generational diversity can be a positive element of the workplace (Jason Martin)
There are 20-something "digital novices" and 80-year-old "tech gurus"
Generation Terminology
-Traditionalists - born before mid-1940s
-Baby Boomers - born mid-1940s to early 1960s
-Generation X - born early/mid 1960s to early 1980s
-Generation Y/Millennials - born early 1980s-early 2000s
Growing Up and Along with Technology
-Gen X librarians developed technology skills as necessary as computers were introduced for research and productivity in school and work environments
When Computers entered their lives
Boomer - after their education
Gen X - during their education
Gen Y - before their education
Generation X: Between Two Worlds
-Typewriters and word processors
-Card catalogs and OPACS
-Print and Electronic
-Analog and digital
-Traditional and Social
-Land line and Cell phones
-VCR and DVR
There has always been a generation in the middle, but tech adds a new dimension
Proficient with technology
Accepting of change
More likely to connect traditional institutions and new modes of communication
The Sandwich Generation
Two "Sandwich" Perspectives
-In the library instruction classroom
-Interactions among librarian colleagues
Generalizations
-How do we make them?
-Do we make them?
During their educations, Gen X:
-Learned to use computers
-Learned other educational technologies
-Researched in print
-Researched online
-Used many print and electronic formats
-Used the card catalog!
-Learned to adapt
Bridging Gaps in the Workplace
Gen X: "I like technology, but I'm not an addict."
What does it mean to say, "I'm not a computer person"?
Gen X Librarians lead in:
-Technology-related task forces
-digitization projects
Making History
There are currently 4 generations in workplace
-Generation x: In the middle of this organizational dynamic
-Rising into management positions
-Unique values = unique benefit
Independence
-Loyal to profession
-require personal/professional life balance
-self-driven and self-motivated
Innovation
-Flexible, entrepreneurial
-Apply skills in new contexts to achieve goals
-Think "outside the box"
Individualism
-Define own paths for personal fulfillment
-Work is a "lifestyle decision"
-Not tied into traditional career development goals
Promoting Innovation: Seek challenges, integrate lifelong learning
Mediating Change: Building relationships, mentoring, training
Translating Cultural Norms: Making a difference, leaving a legacy
**This session was not quite what I thought it would be. However it did provide some good information about generation x.***
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Monday, April 12, 2010
What Administrators Need to Know About Technology CIL2010 Session
What Administrators Need to Know About Technology
Roy Tennant, Senior Program Manager, OCLC Programs & Research
Writes the Blog: Tech Essence Info
-Blog is targeted to library administrators
Techessence.com/topten
1. Technology isn't as hard as you think
2. Technology gets easier all the time
3. Technology gets cheaper all the time
4. Maximize the effectiveness
5. Iterate, don't perfect
--Get something out there early, learn from mistakes, listen to comments and then iterate and put it back out there. (Look at Business 2.0, Netflix Mailers)
6. Be prepared to fail. We think by being perfect we won't fail, but nothing is farther from the truth. Failure is a useful teacher. We can learn from our failures.
7. Be prepared to succeed.
8. Never underestimate the power of a prototype.
9. A major part of any technology implementation is good project management.
10. The single biggest threat to any technology project is political in nature.
--This includes not having enough support within your organization to see it through to the end, or not having enough resources.
What Others Have Said Via Twitter
1. Have an exit strategy. No platform is forever. Ask not only how you'll move onto it, but how you'll move off of it.
2. Vendor solutions still require knowledgeable staff to make them work.
3. IT won't solve any of your problems without proper staffing and management policies which you should allow techies to shape.
4. Administrators need to know that just because a staff member can support certain technologies, doesn't mean they can support all technologies.
5. Allow your staff time and resources to experiment even if nothing comes of it. Innovation comes with risk.
6. Believe a staff member's opinion over a vendor's. Always. ALWAYS.
7. Never depend on technology alone to save your library.
8. The youngest people on staff aren't automatically techno-geeks.
9. Delegate the discovery phase to those who can dedicate more resources to coming up with concise answers to "how" and justify "why."
Comments from the Peanut Gallery
Technology is easy; it is the people that are hard. Having to change people's thinking is harder than incorporating technology.
Avoid the herd mentality. Don't implement just because everyone else has.
Consult the people that work with the users to find out what are the needs of the users.
An administrator with a little bit of technology knowledge is a dangerous thing. Administrators should have more faith in their tech staff.
Need to have ongoing training for library staff. Change in technology is constant, so training for new technologies should also be constant.
Technology can only take you so far. You still need people to make it happen.
***This session was good, and provided some good information. I have more complaints with the room and the fact that I did not have access to wi-fi in the room. The way the room was set up, it was almost impossible to see the screen and the PowerPoint slides. But there were definitely good points brought up for more than just administrators.***
Roy Tennant, Senior Program Manager, OCLC Programs & Research
Writes the Blog: Tech Essence Info
-Blog is targeted to library administrators
Techessence.com/topten
1. Technology isn't as hard as you think
2. Technology gets easier all the time
3. Technology gets cheaper all the time
4. Maximize the effectiveness
5. Iterate, don't perfect
--Get something out there early, learn from mistakes, listen to comments and then iterate and put it back out there. (Look at Business 2.0, Netflix Mailers)
6. Be prepared to fail. We think by being perfect we won't fail, but nothing is farther from the truth. Failure is a useful teacher. We can learn from our failures.
7. Be prepared to succeed.
8. Never underestimate the power of a prototype.
9. A major part of any technology implementation is good project management.
10. The single biggest threat to any technology project is political in nature.
--This includes not having enough support within your organization to see it through to the end, or not having enough resources.
What Others Have Said Via Twitter
1. Have an exit strategy. No platform is forever. Ask not only how you'll move onto it, but how you'll move off of it.
2. Vendor solutions still require knowledgeable staff to make them work.
3. IT won't solve any of your problems without proper staffing and management policies which you should allow techies to shape.
4. Administrators need to know that just because a staff member can support certain technologies, doesn't mean they can support all technologies.
5. Allow your staff time and resources to experiment even if nothing comes of it. Innovation comes with risk.
6. Believe a staff member's opinion over a vendor's. Always. ALWAYS.
7. Never depend on technology alone to save your library.
8. The youngest people on staff aren't automatically techno-geeks.
9. Delegate the discovery phase to those who can dedicate more resources to coming up with concise answers to "how" and justify "why."
Comments from the Peanut Gallery
Technology is easy; it is the people that are hard. Having to change people's thinking is harder than incorporating technology.
Avoid the herd mentality. Don't implement just because everyone else has.
Consult the people that work with the users to find out what are the needs of the users.
An administrator with a little bit of technology knowledge is a dangerous thing. Administrators should have more faith in their tech staff.
Need to have ongoing training for library staff. Change in technology is constant, so training for new technologies should also be constant.
Technology can only take you so far. You still need people to make it happen.
***This session was good, and provided some good information. I have more complaints with the room and the fact that I did not have access to wi-fi in the room. The way the room was set up, it was almost impossible to see the screen and the PowerPoint slides. But there were definitely good points brought up for more than just administrators.***
CIL 2010 Keynote Address
Information Fluency
Lee Rainie - Director - Pew Internet Project
The internet is the change agent
2000
46% of adults use internet
5% with broadband at home
50% own a cell phone
0% connect to internet wirelessly
<10% use "cloud"
2010
75% of adults use intent
62% with broadband at home
80% own a cell phone
53% connect to internet wirelessly
>two-thirds use "cloud"
= fast, mobile connections built around outside servers
Networked Creator Universe
57% are social networking site users
37% share photos
30% share personal creations
30% contribute rankings and ratings
28% create content tags
26% post comments on sites and blogs
19% use Twiter/other status update features
15% have personal website
15% are content remixers
14% are bloggers
The Internet Galaxy, by Manuel Castells
-Four cultures shaped the internet
1. Techno-elites
-Scientific method enshrined, openness, peer review, meritocracy
2. Hackers
-Stallman: Free speech in the computer age; freedom to create, to appropriate, to redistribute
3. Virtual Communitarians
-Early usenet groups, horizontal free communication, primacy of self-directing networks
4. Entrepreneurs
-Netscape IPO
5th culture of the internet: Networked creators
-democratized the voices in media
-challenged traditional media gatekeepers
-Inserted themselves in "expert" affairs
-Enhanced their civic and community roles
-37% of internet users contributed to news
-20% contributed to health content
-19% contributed to civic and political activities
4 ways content creater build communities
1. Produce content that helps them expand their social netowrk and increase their social standing.
Advantages to creators
-Negotiating friendship, status, identity
-Creating spaces for building social netowrks among friends AND those who share their interests
-Creating learning opportunities
-Gaining reputational capital
2. Produce content to create social posses to solve problems
Advantages to creators in posse situations
-Fact checking and transparency
-Crowdsourcing wisdom, especially among "strangers" who share a common purpose
-Production and accumulation of evidence that is easily search-able
3. Produce content to contruct "just-in-time-just-like-me" support groups
Just-in-time-just-like-me communities
-Communities of just-in-time information and support - ad hoc and "on the fly"
-Communities of "rare species" - homophily par excellence (birds of a feather)
-Communities of practice that are "space-less"
4. Produce content unlike traditional news organizations
Social media-sphere is the "5th estate"
70% of the time the top stories in social media are different from those in traditional media
Week of March 30-April 5, 2009
While the traditional press focus on Obama and the Economy, Blogosphere is filled with an eclectic mix of stories including the Guardian Prank, enhanced interrogation techniques by the CIA, Angie Harmon's comments, online security, etc.
5th estate publishing tates
-Technology developments, especially activities in the social media environment
-Bloggers as "rocket boosters"
-Links as social currency
-Off-beat stories, especially those with quirky humor
-American exceptionalism stoires
-Cultural cleavages and social issues more than economic issues
Implications for libraries
1. You can be a node in people's social networks as they seek information to help them solve problems and meet their needs.
2. You can teach new literacies
-screen literacy-graphics and symbols
-navigation literacy
-conections and context literacy
-skepticism
-value of contemplative time
-how to create content
-ethical behavior in new world
3. Neet to re-vision your role in a world where much has changed
-Access to information
-Value of information
-Curating info means more than collections
-Creating media - networked creators should be your allies
***This was a good session - a lot to think about, which this early in the morning I will have to reread this post and process later. ***
Lee Rainie - Director - Pew Internet Project
The internet is the change agent
2000
46% of adults use internet
5% with broadband at home
50% own a cell phone
0% connect to internet wirelessly
<10% use "cloud"
2010
75% of adults use intent
62% with broadband at home
80% own a cell phone
53% connect to internet wirelessly
>two-thirds use "cloud"
= fast, mobile connections built around outside servers
Networked Creator Universe
57% are social networking site users
37% share photos
30% share personal creations
30% contribute rankings and ratings
28% create content tags
26% post comments on sites and blogs
19% use Twiter/other status update features
15% have personal website
15% are content remixers
14% are bloggers
The Internet Galaxy, by Manuel Castells
-Four cultures shaped the internet
1. Techno-elites
-Scientific method enshrined, openness, peer review, meritocracy
2. Hackers
-Stallman: Free speech in the computer age; freedom to create, to appropriate, to redistribute
3. Virtual Communitarians
-Early usenet groups, horizontal free communication, primacy of self-directing networks
4. Entrepreneurs
-Netscape IPO
5th culture of the internet: Networked creators
-democratized the voices in media
-challenged traditional media gatekeepers
-Inserted themselves in "expert" affairs
-Enhanced their civic and community roles
-37% of internet users contributed to news
-20% contributed to health content
-19% contributed to civic and political activities
4 ways content creater build communities
1. Produce content that helps them expand their social netowrk and increase their social standing.
Advantages to creators
-Negotiating friendship, status, identity
-Creating spaces for building social netowrks among friends AND those who share their interests
-Creating learning opportunities
-Gaining reputational capital
2. Produce content to create social posses to solve problems
Advantages to creators in posse situations
-Fact checking and transparency
-Crowdsourcing wisdom, especially among "strangers" who share a common purpose
-Production and accumulation of evidence that is easily search-able
3. Produce content to contruct "just-in-time-just-like-me" support groups
Just-in-time-just-like-me communities
-Communities of just-in-time information and support - ad hoc and "on the fly"
-Communities of "rare species" - homophily par excellence (birds of a feather)
-Communities of practice that are "space-less"
4. Produce content unlike traditional news organizations
Social media-sphere is the "5th estate"
70% of the time the top stories in social media are different from those in traditional media
Week of March 30-April 5, 2009
While the traditional press focus on Obama and the Economy, Blogosphere is filled with an eclectic mix of stories including the Guardian Prank, enhanced interrogation techniques by the CIA, Angie Harmon's comments, online security, etc.
5th estate publishing tates
-Technology developments, especially activities in the social media environment
-Bloggers as "rocket boosters"
-Links as social currency
-Off-beat stories, especially those with quirky humor
-American exceptionalism stoires
-Cultural cleavages and social issues more than economic issues
Implications for libraries
1. You can be a node in people's social networks as they seek information to help them solve problems and meet their needs.
2. You can teach new literacies
-screen literacy-graphics and symbols
-navigation literacy
-conections and context literacy
-skepticism
-value of contemplative time
-how to create content
-ethical behavior in new world
3. Neet to re-vision your role in a world where much has changed
-Access to information
-Value of information
-Curating info means more than collections
-Creating media - networked creators should be your allies
***This was a good session - a lot to think about, which this early in the morning I will have to reread this post and process later. ***
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