Do Library Administrators and Managers Need to Know About Technology?

Roy Tennant

So you’re a manager and therefore don’t need to know much about technology?  Can you leave the technology issues to the geeks?  Roy Tennant, Sr. Program Manager at OCLC, doesn’t think so.  On his blog, he wrote an article, “The Top Ten Things Library Administrators Should Know About Technology”.  Here is his list:

1. Technology isn’t as hard as you think it is.  It has actually gotten easier as time has progressed as processes have become automated.  There is lots of free software available to do a whole host of jobs.  You can even get your own server in minutes with Amazon’s EC2 service!
2. Technology gets easier all the time.  Libraries of utilities and subroutines are available; for example, BitNami lets you install a complete Drupal application with a few clicks within a few hours or less.  Administrators need to know this and try out services easily and quickly.
3. Technology gets cheaper all the time.  Just get a computer catalog sent to you regularly and watch the prices  fall.  You can get a terabyte of storage for $60, and a USB drive with gigabytes of storage to carry around with you.
4. Maximize your most costly investment–your people.  Get them the tools they need, especially more RAM.
5. Iterate, don’t perfect.  Librarians love perfection–we need to stop that!  Get something out early, get some feedback, and then improve it.  Early and frequent feedback is very important.  (See a CNNMoney.com story on how the Netflix mailer went through 13 iterations.) Use this lesson in developing software applications.
6. Be prepared to fail.  Failure is a useful teacher.  If you’re innovating, you will have failures–extract all the information you can from them and use them to succeed.
7. Be prepared to succeed.  We assume people live on our websites–market your services to the community. 
8. Never underestimate the power of a prototype.  They are necessary for successful development.  Prototypes can be anything from a drawing to a functional model.  (Roy has his own server solely for prototyping.)
9. A major part of any technology implementation is good project management.  All successful projects need to be managed.  Top technology developers may not be the best people to manage the project.
10. The single biggest threat to any technology project is political in nature. 

Some other points:

• No platform is forever–know how you will move  on to it and how you will move off it.
• Vendor solutions still require knowledgeable staff to make them work.
• You should allow techies to shape management policies.
• Just because a staff member can support certain technology doesn’t mean they can support all of them.
• Allow your staff time and resources to experiment, even if nothing comes of it.  (Google famously does this and has reaped many benefits from doing to.)
• ALWAYS believe a staff member’s opinion.
• Never depend on technology alone to save your library.  Know your mission and goals.
• The youngest people on staff aren’t automatically techno-geeks.  Technology is not generational.
• Delegate the discovery phase to those who can dedicate more resources to coming up with answers.
• Don’t have a “follow the herd” mentality.  Understand what you need and don’t just install something because others have done it.

Roy’s presentation contains a wealth of practical advice to technology implementation, and administrators who ignore these priciples have a high risk of failed projects.  Some of these principles may seem obvious, but it is surprising how they need to be reinforced frequently.

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today, and CIL 2010 Blog Coordinator