Comments on: Training and Tornadoes

By: K.G. Schneider

K.G. Schneider — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:15:22 +0000

But the general point that librarians shouldn’t use “I need training” to stonewall the adoption of new technologies is a good one.

By: Beth

Beth — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:39:57 +0000

Oops! I see what you mean. My rant came across a little harsh, didn’t it? I actually do answer similarly to what you suggest–”I didn’t have coursework specific to the job, but I did take additional library tech courses, some advanced database courses, etc. which might have made me a little more marketable than someone else. ” Something like that. Thanks for setting me straight Karen! There’s always some class out there after graduation that can benefit your work, too.

By: K.G. Schneider

K.G. Schneider — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:20:34 +0000

We were just offered training in business writing, and I snapped it up. What a great opportunity to learn more about technical writing! So… maybe if you approach the question less literally? Say, sure, you need a class in storytelling, or surveys, or usability.

By: Beth

Beth — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:14:43 +0000

Love this post!

Being in an academic library, I don’t see too much of this among our staff (thankfully), although I do wish they were a little more open to trying new developments in technology. When I was in library school, however, I worked in administration at our public library and sat in on a lot of professional staff meetings, taking notes and such for the director. I do recall hearing “Will there be training” for every freaking new software application, every database, etc. It kind of drove me bonkers, frankly.

The other thing that drives me crazy currently are questions about my own job–”What kind of training/classes/experience/coursework do you need?” (this is for the title Electronic Resources Librarian). I tell them, no training, at least not for what I do–you do your own for the most part and if you’re not willing to get out there an play and take the initiative to educate yourself, don’t pursue a career in electronic resources. And really, that can apply to any librarian specialization.

By: Anne in AZ

Anne in AZ — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:26:14 +0000

HALLELUJAH!

“professionals who pull out their real or metaphorical union cards and insist on “training” to learn anything; professionals who will not tinker and explore and learn on their own.”

We don’t want to be thought of as “messing around” when we’re actually *learning*! If supervisors are not looking out for “messing around” we’ve trained ourselves to expect it, to fear it, and be unable to defend it.

Was it Joyce Sariks who said “reading is your job?” Maybe we need to add a corollary. Or another sentence. Something like “experimenting with new ways of doing things is your job” or “learning to use new technology on your own is your job” or I dunno…

By: K.G. Schneider

K.G. Schneider — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 12:49:21 +0000

On the alphabetical list: Oh yeah, where you’ve got New York Times under “N” and Historical New York Times under “H.” What could be more useful than that?

I’ve repeated this so often I’m hoarse, but in 2005/6 we did usability testing at MFPOW -1, and out of seven personae, only the soccer mom even bothered peeking at help pages. Nobody reads help pages, except geeks looking for super-tips (and it’s fine to offer them help pages but let’s not kid ourselves who’s being “helped”). My theory is that help pages shouldn’t even be offered during the iterative design page so that we’re forced to design around the interface, not fall back on the help pages.

By: David Fiander

David Fiander — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 04:32:05 +0000

On the flipside of staff that insist on “training” (my favourite is “training on the new bibliographic database”, because, you know they’re all so different), is the staff that insist on help pages and tutorials. Even better: help pages and tutorials that one must click through to get to the the actual service. Most recently: the new ejournals list (but don’t get me started on users that think that alphabetic lists of several thousand items are useful).