Changing Jobs

02/06/11

Hi everyone, how has your week gone? It has been very hectic for me. I just changed jobs from being the head of buying books and e-books for UHM libraries to being a library administrator and am now in charge of, among other things, the IT departments. The systems department runs the library system for all the UH libraries on all the islands. It's an integrated system of buying materials, invoicing, receiving, and cataloging books and journals. We also do all the interlibrary loans online. We're trying to figure out the right balance of books and e-books, journals and e-journals. We're following the e-textbook conversation.

The Office of Scholarly Communications is moving heavily into doing digital resource management of both university records and faculty scholarly works. The Networking Department is trying to decide whether we should move from desktop computers for staff to client-based computing (sort of back to the old, old days of dumb terminals and mainframes).

On the public side of the house, we're trying to figure out how to remodel Hamilton Library's first floor so it can become a social networking hub on campus and has a media lab where students can create their own videos, audio materials, etc. We're trying to figure out how to move our libraries from our traditional image on campus of static collections to a place that learners equate with all of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy levels.

Part of my new job is also how to find the money in the budget to do all these things. And also to go out and get more money from donors to be able to get emerging technologies into students' hands.

Wasn't that a great class with Mary-Sensei's students? I shared the stories of how students use technology in Japan and China with several students in the library, co-workers, and also friends at a Super Bowl party this weekend.

One point that especially caught my attention was that it was considered rude to use cell phones on the train or bus in Japan. This underscored my belief that there are many cultural rules and norms that affect technology use. And also got me wondering again about the intersections between cultural norms and the Digital Divide.

By the way, this is an awesome resource for what's happening in America with technology:

http://www.pewinternet.org/

Have a great week: Kim