Go laminate (it) yourself!

In the Librarian from the Black Lagoon, the librarian laminates you if you talk too loudly (I think...I don't have the copy in front of me). At least her school has a working laminator.

Which brings me to the subject of librarians and technology.

In the self-important, never-ending quest to make our profession relevant, our leadership spends a great deal of time on the subject of technology. As well they should, nevertheless, because it's important to keep up and because there's a lot of great stuff out there. That being said, technology was one of the weaker aspects of my grad program, the expectation out there being "learn it yourself." The problem is I'm not a learn-it-yourself learner. I need someone to teach me. To be fair, there are plenty of workshop opportunities out there. But I need to immediately apply my knowledge--if I don't use it, I lose it. That's what happened in the one good tech class I had...I learned Dreamweaver, but then the school I worked at didn't have it, and was set up so that one couldn't do one's own web editing. That's not unusual.

Those taxpayers can whine about how their money is being sunk into urban schools should actually visit urban schools to get a dose of reality. Actually, not just urban ones--I've seen suburban schools where rooms built to be computer labs have been transformed into regular classrooms because of school overcrowding.

Ideally, technology in a school library looks something like this:

Best case scenario: You have a web-based cataloging system and official, librarian-edited website connected to it. You are attached to a computer lab so you can teach an entire class at a time. You have several working printers, a copy machine, projectors for presentations, and subscriptions to grade-appropriate educational and research databases.

Liveable scenario: You have a software based cataloging system, and enough computers in the library for half the class. You have printers and a projector and a couple of electronic subscriptions.

Poor but still liveable scenario (mine). You have a software based cataloging system and a few rickety computers.

Unbearable scenario: No electronic catalogue or circulation system.


Not having technology, however, does not make my job obsolete, however. If anything, it gives greater emphasis to what is often forgotten in the role of a librarian--to get kids to love reading. Yes, technology is a good hook sometimes. I try to use it where I can. Our new principal, fortunately, is pro-technology and doing his best to improve the school's situation vis a vis computers. But in the meantime, my kids, especially, need the literature component. And I'm quite happy, and quite good at, providing it to them.