TL Blogging Challenge #4 – Tech That’s Changed My Job

TL Blogging Challenge #4 – How Technology Has Changed My Job

I’m about to admit my age, but I don’t actually remember a time when libraries didn’t have technology.  Though I remember a bulky card catalog in my elementary school library as a child (and I thought I rocked at using it), I’m decently sure we had a computer catalog by the time I was in middle school and an online one by high school.  So reflecting on this topic requires some creativity.

Anyway…I think the most job-altering technologies since I started teaching are mobile devices.  From the now-comically large card catalog, we can now search for anything, print or digital, from a gadget that fits in our palms.  I find myself and my students using tablets and cell phones so much more than I originally thought, and that has *HUGE* ramifications for library services.  That’s why I bought 12 Android tablets and a Google Play gift card, and I jumped right in this year.  That’s also why I made LibGuides our library homepage and why I encourage students to bring their own devices in from home.

Now more than ever, the library can be in a person’s pocket, and I find that exciting as a teacher-librarian.  It also makes our jobs all the more essential, teaching information literacy skills when information is flooding our smartphones and tablets.  If I can reach students and faculty via the device in their hand (and promoting that it’s me that makes the library a technologically vibrant place), I’m doing at least part of my job right.  And personally, that gives me as much job security as an educator can reasonably expect these days.