Our revamped 5 Year plan has just been given out to us, or at least the first draft of it though I doubt much will change between that and the final version, and finally something to be optomistic about. Finally finally finally we’re going to be embracing blogs and IM reference within the system. It’s almost hard for me to say just how excited that makes me after I’ve been pushing for quite awhile for it. I had a particular fervor after reading The Shifted Librarian’s article about Online Outreach for Patrons. There were so many things in that entry I had never even thought of and it allowed me to do more than I ever would have tried on my own. Adding us to Wikipedia, Wikimapia, utilizing Google Local and Craigslist were only a starting point.

Considering how many of our young patrons don’t seem to want to come into the library these days and the age old problem of people not wanting to walk up to a librarian and simply ask a question, it makes so much sense to meet the patron where they are. That seemed to be particularly true out of a part quote I picked up through David Warlick’s SLJ Summet Powerpoint cited from Vinod Khosla that ended with “…everything is clickable, even their parents.” I don’t think most libraries (read: library administration) realize this.

But I swear, one way or another we are going to drag this library into the 21st century. If not, what good will we be to our patrons who are living and breathing this day and age while we’re stuck in the past?