As a future library professional I like to think of myself as a facilitator or connector of information to people rather than someone who has to “teach” (in that oldskool sense) or use my “expertise” to “give” users information. I like to connect the dots WITH people/users and create a sense of community along the way. There’s a fine line between organizing for the sake of organizing and organizing to make things findable (methinks).

Also: Ditto, Hung, on the other side of your reservations about this school. I was thinking it was too tech oriented for me and now I’m wishing I had more time to engage in the tech side of things. While I still haven’t developed all the knowledge and language needed to fully interact with the geek world I “get it” more than I used to and that’s pretty exciting.

As an HCI guy, I see libraries as a physical manifestation of what we do in interfaces. In many ways, though, I wonder if librarians’ function as interface between human and library exists because there is an underlying usability problem with libraries that necessitates extensive training to fully take advantage of all of their resources.

But maybe not. One of the disadvantages of non-digital information is that it can only exist in a single place at any given moment. That creates in inherent problem for how libraries (or any physical collection) should be organized, and under that constraint, maybe usability issues are inevitable, especially considering how easy Millennials (not to be confused with the Net Generation) expect everything to be.

#thoughtsthatseemeddeepduringbreakfast

I think that this is one of the (I believe unintentionally) brilliant things about SI — as pissed off as we all might get at Martha Pollack for saying that we don’t go to a library school or an HCI school, but an iSchool (citation: SI Ask the Deans Forum, 2009) — all of our diverse/unique uses of the information lens are valuable and should inform each other. And by drinking together and bitching about our SI grievances together (because really, what’s more socially powerful than a shared grudge?), we develop a common language, and we learn through our conversations that we actually aren’t so different after all.

I guess by not discouraging us from potlucking/drinking/friending with each other, SI encourages us to have these discussions about how the school disenfranchises each of its UNIQUE AND BEAUTIFUL specializations. Librations hopes to make conversations like these more frequent and more interesting, in all their first life and internet forms. We’re all about connecting people, information, and technology in ways that feel most valuable to us. Specifically, through friendship and networks of support and encouragement.

Thanks for bringing this up, Hung! Truly awesome.

EDIT: what I forgot to say was that I disagree with Martha Pollack, as you subtly articulate above, when you refer to SI as a hybrid of library school and HCI school. Our iSchool was BOTH Library School AND HCI School, not neither of these. And that is what SI should purport to be, and what we should represent, in all our MSI(I) glory. Because we’re all Masters of Information in our own wonderful ways, and we part with enough money for that degree to call SI an HCI school or a library school or a community informatics school, or whatever type of school is best centered on our uses.