What would YOU tell them? [Need help]
I need some help from all of you, this time round.
If you are an IT professional in a library, or a staff member who has to deal with technology all day, you have probably had a moment or two when you’ve dreamed of being able to magically insert some nugget of understanding into a colleague’s or co-worker’s head. (I know I could count those moments by the dozens, myself.) Maybe you’ve wished that they would just remember that rebooting solves many quirky PC issues. Perhaps you have wished that you’d been consulted before some decision was made–because it would have saved some headaches or money, down the road.
I’m guessing that all of us have been there–a place where we’ve gotten frustrated because, what is known or obvious to us, is not to someone who isn’t immersed in the guts of the library’s IT infrastructure. In most cases, our colleagues don’t intend to annoy, but don’t have the knowledge or context to solve their own problem or to understand why something works the way it does. (After all, if they did, they probably wouldn’t need you, right?)
Now, imagine that you have the opportunity to tell them what you wished they knew. In a sense, you do, at least by proxy–I’m putting together a presentation called “What Your Tech Wished You Knew.” This is intended for library staff of all sorts. If you had a captive audience like this, what would you tell them?
What does this mean to me, Laura?
- I need tip and tricks. What handy things have you found you tell staff about on a regular basis?
- Some things come under the heading “It is what it is.” What are those things you find that staff encounter yet expect to work differently than they do?
- Help them to make tech-related decisions. What sorts of things should administrators consider when making decisions about library technology?
