Skills for the 21st Century Librarian

Meredith Farkas spells it out. Cogent, readable and clear. The tech stuff we need to know isn’t how to make a blockquote in HTML, we have buttons and software for that. The tech stuff we need is big picture stuff, how to solve the problems that are different than the problems that came before them.

So what skills should new librarians have in this first part of the 21st century? At first, I was thinking about specific tech skills like HTML, network administration, PHP and MySQL, etc. While those are certainly important, what I really think library schools aren’t teaching students is the “big picture” topics; how to really be able to keep up with technology, make good decisions about its implementation, use it and sell it to others. Here are a few of the things I came up with.

4 thoughts on “Skills for the 21st Century Librarian

  1. Thanks Jessamyn. You are right, Meredith’s spells out exactly what is need for modern librarianship…and her first point is the most critical: ability to embrace change. [“Change or die” is a motto I heard once.]

  2. A while back, I ran into This Post wich has a great Alice in Wonderland tie-in.

    The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson has a posse!

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