Between writing quick response on publishing industry changes, and last couple visits to libraries with IST 605 thought occurred to me.  It might not be most original thought, but it is important thought.  Libraries and more specifically librarians need to change just like music and publish industry had to.  To be complacent is to be outdated.  Reason I am saying this is because after looking at librarians who gave tours of their libraries (Moon and Bird), even though they were nice people they still were stuck in the past.   

The Librarians provided a lot interesting information about how their libraries operate, and even talked of new technology implementation within libraries to keep their libraries up to date, but what did not change was those librarians.  They held on to their old selves.  They were very much stereotypical librarians (another word for it is boring).   Librarians are educators.  Some of you might argue, but that is very important part of our identity.  Educator who does not know how to effectively educate people is doomed to fail.  We talked in classes about pathfinders, online help, and so on.  All those things are effective tools, but if librarians cannot effectively engage his students they fail. 

When we did both tours librarians just bombarded us with information.  It was mind numbing experience.  During second tour I finally started to watch my classmates.   We all were interested in the information, but because librarian lacked good teaching techniques people faded in and out.  To dump information on people is not to educate.  Education is interactive process.  Librarians to stay viable need to keep all their skills current, and not just adapt to new emerging technology.  Hopefully new librarians and existing librarians start working on acquiring more skills outside of just how to use this new fancy toy (facebook, computer, etc), so people do not react to us like we are just some dried out outdated relics who are just there to push books or other information storage artifacts at people.  This is what outsiders often think of us and even instructors in IST school are not immune from perceiving us like that as I realized during last 618 class on Monday.