Brett Kochendorfer

The meaning of appropriate technology is very narrowly described by the U.S. Congress’s Office of Technology Assessment as “…being small scale, energy efficient, environmentally sound, labor intensive, and controlled by the community.” (Dorf p.101) These are all guidelines that librarians should keep in mind when selecting and implementing technology. The last rule is immensely important for the contemporary librarian; patrons should not be forced to use technology they cannot control. People are experienced with and accustomed to being able to customize and tweak technology to best meet their needs. The technology implemented in your library should have the ability of being customized by your librarians.

The paper can be downloaded in its entiriy here

Michael Stepehsn LIS 768 was on of the most engaging and enjoyable classes I’ve taken at Dominican so far. Although our class met only a few times I feel as though I was abloe to constantly interact and communicate ideas to my classmates via Twitter and blogging. Dr Stephens was able to communicate his vast knowledge of technological concepts and particpatory services to our class in a way which was interesting and rewarding.

I was aware of many of the technological tools that we had used in this class but I had not put a lot of thought into how to use these tools to interact with library users. This was the most important aspect of the class to me, as stated by Mick Jacobsen via Twiter on our first day class “Learn the tech and the reasons you will need both.” It was extremely interesting to post our group project online and have immediate feedback from librarians around the world via the #LIS768 and messages to Dr Stephens.

I am upset about only one thing, and that is that Michael doesn’t teach more classes. I could only hope that my other LIS teachers will be as passionate as engaged in their classrooms and allow us as students to play and discover.