Communicating with IT Professionals
ICTLIG Western Cape held it first meeting on 15 February 2006: "Communicating with IT Professionals". It was hosted by the Peace Library at the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR).
Introduced by Wynand van der Walt, National Convenor of the LIASA ICTLIG Group, and chaired by Caroline Dean, Chairperson of the local Group, the meeting was addressed by both librarians and IT experts.
- Geoff Hoy (University of Cape Town Libraries IT Support) showed that librarians and IT professionals have many characteristics in common -- although they often speak a different language! IT support for libraries is very uneven: public libraries are generally poorly funded, contrasted with huge IT support in academic libraries. IT departments often do not know the core business of their library customers. Geoff warned in particular of having a library run according to the dictates of an IT department.
- An answer to this was provided by John Mouton (University of Stellenbosch Libraries) Librarians need to learn IT skills! The converse is unlikely to happen, although some librarians do go into the IT profession.
- Paul Meyer (Infovision Library Systems) has experience in both fields. "Marketing, implementation and support of a library system is a bit like the marriage process - there's a courtship (marketing), then the marriage (implementation), then making it work after the marriage (support). Good communication is essential throughout the whole process, but nobody's perfect and mistakes can be made on both sides".
- Also, not all IT personnel are equal -- Warren Hansen (University of Cape Town Libraries IT Support) indicated that the first IT person the harrassed librarian stops in the corridor for help may be involved in some high-end technical maintenance and not be the correct person at all. His advice is not to panic and follow the helpdesk procedure.
Sally Schramm then launched the ICTLIG blog on behalf of the Committee
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