For the purpose of this assignment I arranged an in-person interview with the librarian in charge of maintaining the website content for a small university library in southwest Georgia. The librarian that was interviewed is a recent MLIS graduate and in addition to this being their first professional job, it is their first experience in an academic library. While the librarian’s main job duties are currently in cataloging, they were given the task of web maintenance shortly after they began working for their university when they were occupied as the circulation librarian previous to an organizational restructuring within the library. As presented in the interview, the librarian has no experience with web maintenance and had not previously taken any courses in the technology track.
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Me - Good afternoon! I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to ask you a few questions about maintaining the website at your library.
Librarian - Not a problem.
Me – How long have you been a librarian?
Librarian – I have been a librarian for two and a half years
Me – When did you graduate from your MLIS program?
Librarian - I Graduated in May 2010
Me - When you were completing your MLIS program did you take any courses in technology?
Librarian – No, I mainly took management and public library courses.
Me – How did you end up becoming the website manager for the library that you currently work at?
Librarian - Well, I think that came about because there was no one at the time that was in charge of that in the library and the IT department was not on top of getting things done for the library website. When the library was given the opportunity to have input with the website I was the one nominated for the position.
Me - Before you were nominated to take over had you previously had any experience with HTML coding or building a basic website?
Librarian - No
Me - When did you first hear about content management systems such as WordPress or Drupal?
Librarian - The first time that I really heard about those is when I attended the first training session my second semester here when I was trained on how to make changes to the website. Thats really when I became aware of that.
Me - What’s the name of the content management system that your university is currently using?
Librarian - We are currently using WordPress.
Me - What has the university used previously?
Librarian - Umm… the one that we had used before was Liferay.
Me - Do you know what was the criteria that the University had for choosing WordPress?
Librarian - Umm… I was not involved in that selection process, but from some of the conversations that I heard I think they were trying to select a content management system that was a little more user friendly for the web management people that were going to be using it as well as something that was a little more up to date in their eyes, because they wanted to be able to compete with other academic systems as far as with the website was looking.
Me - What are the benefits or advantages of using WordPress over Liferay?
Librarian - Since I am still new to all of this I am not really sure, but from what I can tell so far it is a lot easier to access and is user friendly, more like Facebook where you can just click and drag things. It’s just a lot easier to use compared to what we were using.
Me - What has the learning curve been in picking up how to use a content management system without having any previous experience in web management?
Librarian - It hasn't been as hard as I expected it to be. I’ve received a lot of training to help me along and since I have a lot of computer experience it hasn’t been that bad. I am still trying to play catchup with learning WordPress because I have missed a few sessions.
Me - Finally, do you think that MLIS students would benefit from taking classes that incorporated building and maintaining websites?
Librarian - I think the best thing is to just do it on the job, you can’t learn it from books or in a class or anything.
Me - Alright thank you for your time!
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Reflection
Overall I was surprised to find out that this librarian had no previous experience when it came to web design or web management. While I do personally feel that this librarian is a good example of the thought that anyone can learn to use a content management system, I believe that they are incorrect in their belief that MLIS students would not benefit from learning about building or managing websites in an MLIS course. I also believe that they are incorrect in the belief that web design, coding, and management are not subjects that you can learn in books on in classes. If anything, rather than focusing on classes in public libraries and management as stated, this librarian might have benefited from taking the 7500 or 7505 course to aid them in their future work. I am unfamiliar with the Liferay CMS, but I have personal experience with installing and working with WordPress using MAMP. Like this librarian I feel that it is very intuitive, but the comparison to Facebook was a little off in my experience with using that CMS. I must say that I was overall somewhat disappointed in this librarians answers during the interview.
Yes, I agree, I think the idea that somehow managing the CMS is an experience-only thing is bunk. If nothing else, basic training in UX, if not the specific software, would be extremely helpful. Thinking website design is like FB is how out end up with, well, Facebook. *shudder*
ReplyDeleteThe other interesting thing about your interview is that it's yet another example of how often I've seen that IT needs in libraries are filled with "whoever's available." Although it's *the* growth area for libraries, emerging tech is so often relegated to zero-priority status. It's disappointing.
I generally view "learning-by-doing" aspects of librarianship being things like the ILS, copy-cataloging (esp on the software end of things), and to a lesser extent grant-writing... but web management? I am still picking my jaw up off of the floor. I could go into more detail, but this librarian did not wish to be named. The aspect of "whoever is available" is an interesting topic. Something that would never happen in a Public Library actually goes on all the time at my present library, IT staff that are do not know how to install, setup, or maintain library software...and consequently library staff that do not know how to setup or maintain their software (all it takes is reading a manual!).
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