Faster than the speed of geek

Jennifer shares an interesting idea for career education: speed geeking. I’ll shamelessly quote what Jennifer quotes:

In speed geeking, small groups of students meet with one professional librarian (aka geek) at a time to gain insight into what it’s like to be a working librarian. You can ask questions about their job, patrons, professional development or get tips on library school. Whatever you’re curious about.

One of my colleagues shared a similar idea for public libraries, essentially offering teens a chance to see what it’s like “behind the counter” — show them some of the technology that we use, explain how it works, explain what we do for customers and why it’s important.

I like this kind of exposure, as it serves both the students / teens and the librarians well. The students / teens get to learn about librarianship as a profession, and the librarians can put a human face on the services and opportunities that we provide.

Libraries will continue always exist in some form or another. But we need young, sharp minds “behind the counter” so that we remain essential and relevant to people’s lives — and this challenge will become only more difficult in coming years, especially considering how rapidly the information environment is evolving. (Who ever knew that social networking sites would ever surpass pornography?)