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November 21, 2005
Talking to IT
Meredith, Karen, and Michael are all talking about libraries talking to IT Departments.
We need to be more assertive in what we want. I can't tell you how many of my conference sessions are followed by a gaggle of librarians approaching me to lament that they'd love to do these things, but their IT Departments won't let them.
I don't think that IT folks are intentionally prohibitive or limiting. It's their job to protect equipment and networks. Sometimes they just do it too well. What I suggest to people is:
A) Be knowledgeable about the technology you're requesting, including any security holes of problems that IT might bring up as a roadblock. Research ahead of time, and bring in information to back your position up, including discussion on library listservs, blogs, or conference notes.
B) Be enthusiastic. They're more likely to say yes if you take the "wow this is so cool, I'd love you to help us do this" attitude than the "I know you're going to say no" attitude.
C) Keep fighting. If they say no the first time, take it to your boss. Then take it to their boss(es). Everyone has a boss of one kind or another, and bosses talking to bosses is often the only way big things happen.
November 21, 2005 | Permalink
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Comments
Yes, sweets can work with just about any group. I've promised to take the IT web team out to dinner if they can manage to get my library's webpage out of the horrible county frame. So, apparently real meals work too. I do believe that it's an unnecessarily adversarial relationship, and one in which the librarians too often get the short end of the stick. We can work together. It can be done.
Posted by: Sarah Houghton (LiB) | November22, 2005
you make a good point that IT folks sometimes do their job "too well" protecting the network. i think they forget that others are trying to create resources, and that a complete lockdown is very limiting.
working with K-12 librarians, we often encounter 2 levels of IT barriers: school and district. isolating where the barrier lies can be quite a task. however, i think this general frustration has helped innovate great apps like meebo, which find a workaround. it's just a shame it's come to this.
on a humorous (but true) note, i've known librarians to have success plying IT folks with cookies and brownies. :)
Posted by: matt | November21, 2005
