Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Change Pirate Day 11, Post #16

Week 9, Thing 23
#23 Is this really the end? Or just the beginning ...

Well, here we are!
I'd like to once again state the summary of my blog here before I get started on my summary to try give a bit of perspective as to my own thoughts on this issue.

Change is a tricky thing. Constant change, while inevitable, is perhaps the most terrifying thing to the human mind because a static state of being is perhaps the most comforting thing in the world. Constant Change. I first learned of this concept through a website called Constant Change Productions, and since then I've been learning to overcome my fears and face the facts. Change is inevitable. Change is painful. Change is beautiful. Perhaps the most extraordinary vantage point to observe this natural phenomenon is through the view of a Public Library. Trends, fashions, social issues and cultural controversies all find their way through these gates as the modern centers of knowledge and self-information. But, I digress. Here I hope to find my merry, and hopefully productive/resourceful way as a pirate of change, surfing through the galleries of time and space (Fancy way of describing the internet) to find more effective, more efficient, and more self-dependant ways of being proactive about change.

Change is inevitable, painful, and beautiful, and I have had some incredible opportunities where I work to observe these things in so many ways whether it be a person learning to use a card catalogue program on a computer or showing how someone to look for jobs on the internet for the first time.

I'd like to say this is an excellent start for the library world to begin accessing their resources to the fullest extent of the possibilities, but learning means nothing without practice. Until we use these as our own resources among ourselves, until the most hidebound, traditional catalogue assistant finds themselves able to step out onto the floor and authoritatively help a young woman edit the wrong html out of her myspace profile or post up their pictures from their camera to Flickr, I feel that merely raising our awareness is only a start.

As librarians I feel we have a responsibility to ourselves and our patrons to lead the way for the public into the new century of information research and technology, and we've got a long ways to go!

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