This ain’t Ragnarok (or at least it shouldn’t be)
I’ve been reading lately about employee retention, and it turns out that one of the most important (if not the most important) factor in retaining employees and reducing turnover is simply satisfaction with the regular duties of one’s job.
With that in mind, check out David Lee King’s post, “How can we change the unchangeable, or David’s rant.” David discusses the harsh reality that many library systems resist technological innovation, frustrating innovative techie librarians. And as David points out,
What happens to those discouraged techie staff? Probably one of two things:
- They’ll realize that library customers want to participate online (which should be obvious - just take a peek at Amazon or eBay if you don’t believe me), but their library won’t be implementing online participation any time soon. So they’ll settle back, and either simply stop caring, or wait for the administrators to move on to other libraries or retire. Or worse yet (but great for libraries that actually WANT to innovate), they’ll…
- Find a more innovative library, and move on. Some libraries (ie., Darien Library, McMaster University, and Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library are examples of this) are realizing that there’s a huge technology shift happening with online social tools and expectations, and will take steps to meet those changes. Some of those steps have turned into new, emerging jobs that are just waiting to be filled with an innovative thinker… who’s probably working at your library RIGHT NOW.
Discovered via LibrarianInBlack, who adds,
Think about how you (yes, you) could be blocking change and innovation in your library. Think about why you’re doing it. You may feel that you have very good reasons (budget issues may be one of those). But you may be doing things subconsciously or as a knee-jerk reaction without thinking. Just do some self-reflection here.
See also Michael Casey’s “If they go elsewhere, we lose.”
April 26, 2007 at 1:58 pm
I don’t think it applies just to technology. Libraries suffer from two attitudes that younger generations coming into the work force dislike. One is saying, “Well that is the way we’ve always done it” and the other is changing a policy because of a freak one-time occurance. Libraries won’t retain the younger generations of workers if they don’t change those two attitudes.