From Michael: Thanks FGL for contributing this guest post! I can’t believe how many years it’s been since I interviewed you for LJ: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6262153.html
Hi, friends – Feel-good Librarian here, with biggest, shiniest congratulations to Michael and the whole Tame the Web community! Ten super years of information sharing and general quality assurance in the library world. Awesome!
TTW has covered so many topics, but the ones that appeal most to me have been about keeping the heart in technology. Most of my interactions are still in person, but many occur through technology: email, internet, IM and texting, as well as the telephone. I’ve experienced feel-goodness at both ends of the spectrum recently.
I still teach internet skills for our homeless shelter. A patron that I taught in the seminar a few sessions ago stopped me in the lobby recently. She said, “You teach the computer seminars!”
I agreed, and she told me the following: “I learned how to do stuff on the computer here so I could fill out applications. I’d never heard of that. I went over to Taco Bell and they said I had to apply on the computer, they didn’t even have paper ones anymore. If it hadn’t been for the library teaching me how to do computers, and the shelter teaching me how to live, I’d still be in the gutter.”
Wow.
On the other hand, I told a friend at church that the library has online databases she can access from her home computer with her library card number, covering lots of topics. I emailed her the link. She texted me later, after she followed the link and delightedly explored our list.
Friend: There is a whole database for home maintenance! I found gas furnace tune-up instructions for [husband]. And I found the hobbies database!!!!!
FGL: You are the perfect patron! You actually follow directions, use the resources, and then to be so excited about them!
Friend: And YOU are the fairy princess librarian with the magic wand that opens the door to the “Room of All Knowledge.”
Feel-good to fairy princess, folks. Sometimes it may not feel that way to you, since you know the ins and outs of your everyday library processes, but please don’t forget that when it works, YOU can do magic in someone’s life.
Ten great years of technology – and heart. Thanks for the magic, Michael!
#TTW10 “Tamer” Graphic by Theresa Papaurelis, Graphic Artist at Indian Prairie Public Library. (http://ippl.info)