Methods 1 and 2

Stephen Abrams’s article on Web 2.0 and Librarian 2.0 is just exactly what has caused me to drag my feet on starting this Web 2.0 training—A dozen Ways to Two-Step. The article is filled with phrases and ideas which are totally foreign to me, and it seems exhausting to do the work necessary to bring myself up to speed. Abrams’s article was written over a year ago—what has changed since he wrote the article? What new things have been developed in the last year? Technology evolves at a breakneck speed.  I am 57 years old. I grew up in a non-digital world. When I was a senior in high school, there was one group of geeks taking a computer class. We still used the slide rule in chemistry. I used little pieces of correction tape to fix my mistakes while typing research papers. Bottom line, I’m terrified that no matter how much I work, I won’t be able to catch up.

I’ve been a school librarian for 16 years. We got connected to the Internet in our district during my second year. Perhaps it really became useful 3 or 4 years later. So within 10 years, we’ve (I’ve) gone from its being an interesting concept to its being absolutely essential to life on this planet. I love the Internet, the instant access to just about any information I could possibly want, the instant communication with everyone important (or unimportant) to me, the incredible ease with which I can do my job—everything from ordering books online to helping students find reliable information in a fraction of the time it took me at their age. I have to wonder, though, what the consequences will be. There is something about the Web and where it is going that feels very invasive to me. That is one reason I’ve resisted making a Facebook page (that, and the fact that my children wouldn’t want to be my friends.)

So, I’m looking to this little course to move me a little closer to tech-savviness and away from fear of the whole thing!

P.S. My one point of tech pride is that I do have another blog—one I created a couple of years ago to post book reviews on for my students. See it at http://lorenahslibrary.blogspot.com/