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Whippersnappers vs. the Old Guard? Making E-Resources Training a Collaborative Experience
by Chris Tovell
Have you ever had the pleasure of training librarians who have years, if not decades, more experience than you do? Does the thought of getting up in front of a room full of your colleagues whose time on the job might just equal or surpass your time on the planet make you break out in hives? How about trying to explain the deeper significance of a "fatal error of type 2" to a librarian who has just suffered major data loss?
If these scenarios leave you feeling skittish, then trust me, you don't want to become an Electronic Resources Librarian.
The trouble with e-resources is that they present a constantly moving target -- one that is especially frustrating for librarians who have years of subject mastery, but only a passing familiarity with, or interest in, technology. Interfaces are "upgraded" with annoying frequency, and computer systems evolve and expand -- sometimes beyond recognition. Librarians just searching for answers don't want to hear questions like: "So you say you're having problems viewing your results set in Netscape? Is that 4.76? Are you running on it on Windows 9x or 2000? Have you tried it in IE? Are you running that through a proxy?"
Some of us might wonder just how it is that we became, with neither our knowledge nor our consent, de facto systems geeks. While I would never claim to be a systems geek myself, I will say that, just by virtue of having completed my LIS degree more recently than many of my colleagues, I am more conversant than they with the spectrum of browser and platform issues, third party plug-ins, file formats, etc. that inevitably crop up when people are discussing e-resources. So, when designing e-resources training sessions, I try to establish a collaborative atmosphere in which all participants are encouraged to share their expertise. If it becomes the "whippersnapper tech geeks" versus the "old guard subject specialists," the training session is doomed from the start. Here are some guidelines to help avoid that particular nightmare:
1. Find out what your colleagues want to learn. Should you focus on content? Usability? Both? Before the training session begins, find out what kind of problems or concerns your colleagues have about the resource or resources in question. Very often questions focus on usability rather than content: "What's the best way to print from JSTOR? Can I e-mail the results?"2. Organize training sessions around specific topics or themes. This is especially rewarding if a colleague suggests the topic. One of the best training sessions I ever had was prompted by a co-worker's question about searching for obituaries. I learned a great deal about document type indexing preparing for that one.
3. Whenever possible, go with a live presentation. Canned presentations are good for backup -- but not much else. While it's always good to rehearse some successful searches for demonstration purposes, there's nothing like the unexpected to bring out the collaborative side in a bunch of librarians. Search failure provides an excellent opportunity for classroom interaction and gives your more experienced colleagues an opportunity to share their knowledge.
4. Remember the importance of humility. When I train colleagues, I always start by saying that, although I maintain our "Selected Electronic Resources" menu, that by no means implies mastery of the resources it contains. This generally puts people at ease and allows the subject specialists in the room to shine. Making your colleagues look good is never a bad idea.
5. Never miss a chance to elaborate on the basics of the desktop metaphor. Those of us who have been using WIMPy interfaces (windows, icons, menus and pulldowns) all our lives sometimes forget what an elaborate language they entail. On at least three occasions in the past year, I have utterly changed a co-worker's approach to using a PC just by explaining the use of Ctrl+C (copy) and Ctrl+V (paste). Tabbing between input boxes (rather than using the mouse) also often garners surprised exclamations.
A collaborative training session will be a successful training session. If you can create an environment in which everyone's talents are brought into play, trainees will learn more than just whether or not it is possible to e-mail a results list from a given database. Moreover, if you are able to enrich your colleagues' understanding of computer systems and the desktop metaphor even a little bit along the way, then it's virtually certain that they will thank you for it -- and thank you profusely! -- just as you will thank them for the subject knowledge that they share with you.
Though it would be a stretch to call him a whippersnapper, Chris Tovell did earn his MLIS rather recently (May 2000). Since then he has been working as an Electronic Resources Librarian at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library in Midtown Manhattan. (Yes, the gorgeous Beaux-Arts building with the lions out front.)