Teaching Nursing
Using Concept Maps

NEW - Learn More >>

 

Acclaimed Tutorial
and Case Study Series

Learn More >>

Program Overview

Always a River, Sometimes a Library

Soaring to Excellence

 

Why are we talking about this? To foster a new mindset.

We need to become:

  • Less religious and more skeptical
  • Less idealistic and more pragmatic
  • Less instructive and more helpful

Fundamental assumptions

  • Things are not okay
  • Fundamental change calls for fundamental change
  • We’re lecturing our patrons and missing opportunities

Three ways our profession is broken

  • Too many rule-followers, not enough problem-solvers
  • The “Teach a Man to Fish” fallacy
  • Too much self-congratulation, too little progress

Four ways to fix it

  • Question (not celebrate) our “core values”
  • Give up on the educator function
  • Stop talking to ourselves; start listening to patrons
  • Abandon print

 

The Mississippi River as a Metaphor

Two strategies for dealing with a river:

  • Adjustment
  • Control

Only one strategy works: Adjustment

The river always wins. How is this a metaphor for libraries?

  • Patrons are the river.
  • Like water, they will follow the path of least resistance.
  • Our ability to redirect them is limited in the short run, and nonexistent in the long run.
  • If we try the “control” strategy, they’ll ultimately go where they want and we’ll just get hurt.

The Three Terrible Questions

  • What’s the Internet got that we ain’t got?
  • When is good enough good enough?
  • Why do we think we’re so much smarter than our patrons?

Ways to think about patron behavior

  • Efficiency is not laziness
  • As a matter of fact, online IS better than print
  • Don’t try to think like a good librarian; try to think like a bad patron
  • Google rules.  Deal with it.

Strategies for adapting to patron behavior

  • Three words: online, online, online
  • Put inertia on your side
  • Embrace risk; celebrate failure
  • More fish; fewer peas
  • Celebrate efficiency
  • Focus on speed-to-stacks

 

| Presenter Biographies