Planning For?

The photo I've included with this week's post (I am late) is of the skeleton near the Information Services desk at the Arizona Health Sciences Library in Tucson, Arizona. It is real and is described in the catalog as an "Afro-Asiatic male approximately 40-50 years of age." This skeleton, frozen as it were in this glass case with a cable lock indecorously protecting it from necromaniacs against science, seems to me an apt analogy for the technology plans of libraries and other like public institutions.

Robert Dugan's article struck me this week (Dugan, R. E. (January 01, 2002). Information technology plans. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 28, 3, 152.). As I mentioned in class discussion, I lived through the great changes academic libraries have experienced in regards to the digital during the last decade or so and the rapid adoption of rather corporate positions on the part of management and administrations within my ken lingers in my memory. I was thrilled to see Dugan ask bluntly, "Has the acquisition and application of information technologies improved learning? " Too often have I seen and/or been a party to making technology decisions or planning with only staff and faculty work flows taken into account and the needs of users or students never considered. Budget restrictions lead to the underfunding of previous decisions, rendering the acumen of the past redundant, and Dugan asks "Have the costs associated with the technology been worth it? How do we know?"

Economists refer to something called "opportunity cost;" that is to say, what is the cost of doing something in terms of the lost opportunities to do something else. This hidden opportunity cost, seemingly inherent even within the best of technology plans, is the elusive measure of which Dugan speaks. If planning for technology is not done well failure of the attempted system is not likely the only or even the most harmful result. The waste, as alluded to in Eric Chabrow's article (Chabrow, E. (November 28, 2005). State of the Union it seems as if government IT projects are cleaned to fail.Information Week Manhasset-, 1066, 40-47.), can become so great and the obviously missed opportunities so egregious that fundamental confidence in an institution and its mission may be called into question by stakeholders. For institutions dependent upon public confidence such as libraries missed opportunities are missed chances to reinvigorate supporters, identify stakeholders and move forward with technology informing and informed by end users.

After examining technology plans this week such as the American Library Association's and that of the Nevada State Library, as examples, I have come to see the best technology plans as skeletal frameworks that provide both solidity and flexibility. A plan must be clear enough to work as a guide to action but not too rigid. The plan cannot be uselessly vague but too many particulars and we run the risk of running an entire institution down a technological cul de sac. I feel more empowered than ever before, by this class and others I have taken during my studies in librarianship, to speak up concerning issues of technology planning within institutions I am a member of. I feel that I have a better understanding, a better vocabulary and more wisdom than I did ten or twenty years ago. Although I have always been a stakeholder, I was not always able to perceive this and assert myself in an appropriate manner. I now feel better able to represent myself and others where libraries and technology planning are concerned.

B.A.W.

B.A.T.