But first, a little background

So how did I get into library technology, anyway?

I've never been a specifically tech-y person, but I've always believed that my ignorance of technology should never get in the way of what I want to do.  When I was in junior high, I wanted to make British friends (self-diagnosed Anglophile here - no shame!), so I created an AOL account and learned to navigate to British-themed chatrooms.  When I was in high school, I wanted to create a blog to keep up with my friends, so I joined LiveJournal.  When my LJ wasn't as pimped out as my friends', I learned to copy other people's CSS codes to make mine look pretty.  While in library school, I was assigned to create a Google site for my portfolio, so I copied someone else's template and reworked it to be personalized for me (hey, no need to reinvent the wheel, right?).  At work at the library, our circulation system was down, so I investigated how to use Microsoft Access as a work-around using one of the preexisting templates.  I needed new book straps for my interlibrary loan system, so I Googled how to use mail merge in Microsoft Word to edit our old label form.  For our display committee, I fiddled around with Adobe Photoshop and PowerPoint to create posters and fliers.

The basic theme of my approach to technology is 1.) If I don't understand it - Google it, and 2.) Trial and error.  While I was copying other people's CSS code, I didn't understand what I was doing exactly -- so half the time I couldn't figure out how I had made my profile box turn invisible or why the header was now so huge it was obscuring the title.  But I kept experimenting until I figured it out or I found a workaround that obscured how little I knew about coding.  Fake it until you make it, am I right?

I am so surprised by how many people get stumped by small problems and don't try to solve them on their own.  One time a CD-ROM got stuck in my laptop and my husband thought I was going to have to take it to the shop to get it fixed.  I Googled the problem and found out some weird fix where you  restart your computer while maniacally clicking a certain button a million times until the computer eventually vomits out the CD.  It sounded funky, but it worked.  I think that too often people expect to already know the answer to a problem, and if they don't -- they assume they can't solve it.  You don't need to have formal education in technology to try using it in your daily life.

I think that especially in the ever-changing library field, librarians need to be willing to go out on the extra limb and investigate solutions other libraries have tried -- or apply solutions from other fields to the library environment.  Creativity and the willingness to try new things are the keys to managing a learning organization.