Here is anamazing story of a Librarian...whose librarian study do not specially relate to Internet...Never learn't Internet but wish to become a "distance learning librarian". Now here is HE!



I have gotten several emails from library students who feel that their programs are not teaching them enough about technology. The student I heard from a few days ago expressed concerns that she would be at a distinct disadvantage when she got out of school and wondered… if I learned what I know about technology in library school. First of all, I don’t think I know that much about technology compared to many other librarian friends of mine, but I can tell you that I certainly did not learn what I do know in school. I was in a program where there was a “library science” component and an “information technology” component, and the two were very separate and led to different vocations. The technology classes usually had nothing to do with libraries and the library classes had nothing to do with technology. What I learned about technology was not related in any way to libraries, so I really had to make the connections myself. Even my Information Retrieval class, which fascinated and challenged me, had no mention of libraries or OPACs or anything (probably because it was taught by someone without a library background)! I only started to realize the value of what I’d learned in Information Retrieval when reading things by Roy Tennant and other critics of OPACs. (Don’t you just love those “lightbulb” moments?)
So I, too, was put at a “distinct disadvantage” by my library school, especially since my interests leaned toward the more blended librarian-type positions. My fantasy was to become a Distance Learning Librarian (funny how things work out!), which I figured required a lot more tech-savvy than I had coming into my final semester of my graduate degree. I realized I would have to take my education into my own hands if I wanted to be at all marketable in the academic library world. And I have a feeling this is how many of our colleagues learned to be the fabulous tech-savvy librarians they are.
The first thing I would recommend for anyone in the field is to learn to design a website. Whether you are a youth services librarian or a web services librarian, it is tremendously helpful to know some basic HTML. Knowing some CSS also can make your life a whole lot easier when you have to make changes to a site’s design. I can’t tell you how many job ads I saw for “traditional librarian” positions (youth services, reference, etc.) that wanted people with web design skills. When you have the sort of libraries that hire new employees once every 10 years or more, they are going to want to hire someone with some tech-savvy, since it’s likely that no one else on staff has those skills. What I learned in my web design classes I improved upon by simply creating more websites and by critiquing library websites. You can learn HTML in a book, but you won’t be able to design a decent website if you don’t practice, practice, practice. If you want to purchase a WYSIWYG website development program, I’d suggest Macromedia Dreamweaver, because it lets you see the code as you are designing the site. Most of the time I just hand code pages, since I don’t want to forget my HTML. It’s just like any language. Use it or lose it.
Obviously for some library positions you’ll need to know more than HTML and CSS. I’ve seen many job ads asking for PHP, Java, Javascript, MySQL, XML, Perl, and others. Probably if you don’t know any of those by your last semester of grad school, you’d be hard-pressed to learn any of them them by graduation. I plan to learn more programming languages in the future, but after trying to learn Java last Fall (which has to be the most frustrating language!), I need a break. In terms of books, I’m a big fan of the O’Reilly and Visual Quickstart/Quickpro series of books. The Visual Quickpro book on PHP and MySQL is fantastic (though a little dated at this point) as is the HTML Visual Quickstart book. But just like textbooks, what’s good for one person may not be good for another. Look through them in a bookstore if possible and see if the format works for you.
Another great thing to do is to play with new technologies. I never created any podcasts of my own (I hate my voice), but I downloaded plenty and even played around with Audacity a bit. I was interested in wikis so I created one (though one could more easily edit the wikipedia or something). I didn’t have any practical use for Jybe at the time I tested it, but I played around with it and became a fan. And in the future, it may be something I recommend to my supervisor. A big part of the reason I got my job was my experience with screencasting and knowledge of screencasting software. I learned about screencasting by reading about it in blogs, downloading trial versions of Captivate and Camtasia, and playing with them. I created a screencast for one of my interviews and everyone was really impressed with it. I just thought it would be a good thing to have some experience with. And it was. Depending on what sort of library work you’re interested in, play around with software that may be relevant to that job. It’s not only a good thing to put on your resume, but the software is often a lot of fun to play with (or maybe I’m just a geek).
The place in which I learned the most about library technologies was not in a classroom or in a book. It was in the blogosphere. I think I had first started reading Jessamyn’s and Jenny’s blogs last summer and realized that I didn’t know about half of what they were talking about. So I found other technology-related blogs while trying to figure out what in the world they were talking about. I found Steven’s blog. And Michael’s blog. And Andrea’s blog. And Sarah’s blog. Luckily there was a huge buzz about RSS at the time, so I learned about Bloglines, got myself account and kept adding to my collection of blogs. An RSS aggregator is one of the best keeping up accessories. When I was reading 5 blogs it wasn’t such a big deal to go to each site and see if anything new had been written. However, when the count gets up to 20, 50, 100 or more, the task becomes a bit unwieldy. An RSS aggregator simply collects new content from all of the RSS feeds you’re subscribed to and allows you to look at them all on the same page. So shortly after Jessamyn writes something new, I get to see it in my aggregator along with the new content from every other blog or journal I’m subscribed to. (I know to most of my readers this is redundant, but not everyone who reads blogs knows about RSS and aggregators. And they should because it will make their lives so much easier.)
Whatever one thinks about blogs, it is hard to deny that they are a great way to share information. The medium offers an immediacy that journals lack and gives people a space to talk about things in libraries that maybe wouldn’t fit into a journal. Thanks to the blogs I read, I have so many great ideas for my new job that I’m just about ready to burst!
I also think it’s important to read journals. At the mom