I finally got a chance to sit down with our school librarian today. She was out of town all last week taking care of her father, but luckily we were able to plan ahead for a time today to sit and chat.
Mrs. Keatley is from a time where her first experience with a computer came in college. She recalled a time when Mac could only read a file up to a certain size. One of her final major papers was on the verge of that size, and apparently her final revision bumped it over. The computer let her save and overwrite the old file, but then refused to open the new document because it had become too large. I believe that early experience really set the tone for her ideas on technology from that point on.
Her first school library job began in 1987. The school had two Apple IIe computer in the media center that were the only computers in the school. She remembers them as slow and lacking in usefulness, but as sturdy machines that were built to last the test of time. She laments that the computers we get in now seem so fragile that we might as well throw them out once they are over three years old. The entire school shared two television sets on rolling stands and there was no option but to show VHS tapes on them since there was no cable system in the school. The card catalog was still based on cards, and the checkout system of taking the card out when the book left was simple…yet left you rarely having any idea of your actual inventory in the library.
She spoke of how her position’s name change from Librarian to Media Specialist really mirrors the role she has come to play in the school. Once the technology started flowing into the schools, they implemented a checkout system from the media center for each item. That slowly changed to having enough of everything that each classroom had their own and no longer had to check things out. However, the responsibility of keeping inventory of all the items remained her duty.
The actual books have changed too. She said that they used to have a smaller budget and could buy even fewer books because “library bindings” were twice the cost of normal books. On the other hand, books now seem to last no longer than 5 years maximum, and those expensively bound books are still holding up after 20 years.
The main problems in the library today seem to fall into two groups: upkeep and training. The lack of funding and time for each always creates an inefficient use of technology in the school. The budget always seems to include money for new supplies, but not enough to maintain them. She told me about how a few years ago the PTA supplied all our classrooms with a new printer. They worked great for a year or so…until the ink ran out. The PTA wasn’t willing to continually fund replacement, and the school couldn’t afford them. Last year we sent the majority of those off to be recycled.
Training is a major issue as well, because her time is so full with kids and book checkouts during the day. After school, she is busy fixing problems that the county tech team will never get to. Many teachers have no idea how to utilize the technology in their room. It is different with each teacher though, because they are all on different levels. She tries to offer school-wide trainings when an obvious need arises, but what is logical and natural to some ends up sounding like brain surgery to others.
She likes our current Follett system because it is localized and efficient. She says the larger circulation systems wouldn’t be best suited for our network because our server is old and adding pictures, reviews, or any other information would just slow down the check in/checkout process. It doesn’t appear that many students use the system to find books here anyway. Most prefer our online reference sources, but there isn’t a centralized system to search all of them from one site.
She sees the future of the library having less and less to do with actual books, and becoming more as a facilitator to finding information digitally. She thinks that many of the current fads of using blogs, wikis, and message boards as a bandwagon that is used more for show than actually being useful. However, she thinks that education will continue moving in that direction, and that more efficient tools will naturally evolve from those beginnings.
I have a feeling this conversation has been less of an interview and more of an open discussion that will continue in the future. She knows the future of the library is pretty obscure at the moment, but we have really had a great time speculating and discussing possibilities for THIS library at least!
Final Thoughts
This school is fortunate to have a principal that is very technology oriented. Although that tends to mean that our inventory list is massive and rather unruly, we get to experiment with most technologies that come out and seem interesting and useful. Ms. Keatley grew up in a time with little in the way of technology, but she is full of desire to continually learn as technology grows and changes. She also tends to be a bit distrustful of the newest changes in anything, and is unwilling to let go of functioning technology until she is absolutely sure the next generation will hold its own and supersede the current. I think this allows for a library (and school) that is both on the cutting edge, yet functional and stable, to appeal to all levels of users. She mentioned that she wants to get all the life out of a machine…yet get rid of it before its merely on life support. Many times inadequate funding prevents this from being possible, but I still agree deeply with the idea behind it.
Ms. Keatley has always been very knowledgeable, approachable, caring, and open minded. I believe that my time working with her (the last two years) has really nurtured my long-standing thoughts of becoming a librarian. This conversation (there was far too much discussion and frequent tangential ideas followed for the term “interview” to really cover it) has really served to reinforce both my desire to become a librarian and my admiration of my interview “subject”. While it didn't really open up a specific area for my service project, I mentioned it, and she agreed to keep that in mind and brainstorm with me again in a few days.
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