Reading these thoughts on Library 2.0 first made me wonder if I needed to find a new career. If all the information is at the users fingertips and all barriers removed, yada yada yada - why do we need libraries or librarians. As I read further, I caught a few thoughts that made me feel a little better.
Dr. Wendy Schultz made the point that we are/will be needed because we know/understand the relationships between documents. So, if we (I) can see the relationships between the info, the web 2.0 (or 3.0 or 4.0!) and the users, maybe I won't have to switch careers. She also said that libraries have to offer a compelling experience, others referred to the library as a conversation and Michael Stephens challenges us to meet the user's needs in a new or improved way. I guess you have to find whatever it is that makes people go to Starbucks rather than use the coffee maker in their kitchens. Not sure I have the answer there but I do think it will be easier as an elementary school librarian to bring something extra to the experience. Perhaps I'm naive.
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I am surprised about your thoughts. I am a technologist that had been thinking that to do what I really like to do I need to be a librarian. Just the tools will be different, won't be paper will be ipods, and ither technology tools
It also depends on your situation. Many school districts have instructional technologists on campus so the librarian may do less of the web 2.0 instruction. On my campus, I'm it. For many of the students, I am their only link to computers/web in school. But I still have a facility filled with materials (paper) to manage and use as well. Talk to people in both types of positions before you make the change! I'm not sure what you do now that keeps you from doing what you really like to do. (I've had the thought that maybe I need to become an instructional technologist!) Maybe the grass is always greener!
Most of the school in this area don't have a budget to pay an instructional technologist, but they have a librarian.
I was reading information that Doug Johnson provide about librarians, I found it interesting. Here is the address, in case you want to read it.
http://www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/the-indispensable-librarian.html
Thanks! I'll have to read it when I can concentrate on it.
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