On Tue, 24 Jul 2007, Sharon Foster wrote:

> I'm a former embedded software engineer and a current library student,
> trying to get up to speed on all this Web stuff. This question is not
> part of any class project, but just for my own curiosity. How did you
> all come to be so heavily involved in this aspect of librarianship? I
> don't think it's being covered in most traditional MLS curricula, at
> least not in any hands-on way, although there are certainly some LIS
> programs that are getting into it in more depth than mine is.
>
> Were you a librarian first, who learned it via classes and tutorials?
> Are you a former software developer or web developer who moved into
> the library world? Or was there another path for you?

I'll go with 'other path':

(vaguely chronological, dependancies shown so it vaguely makes sense,
although there's probably some diamond inheritance)


   (hobby programming growing up)
   Graphics ->
       Drafting ->
           Civil Engineering undergrad
               (dead path, other than for engineering concepts)
       Computer Graphics ->
           Web design ->
               Web development (programming) ->
                   Web server administration ->
                       Unix system administration
           Database design (forms/reports) ->
               Database programming (VBA) ->
                   Database programming (PL/SQL) ->
                       Systems Analyst ->
                       Database administration ->
                           Data Modeling ->
                               Systems Architect ->
                                   Information Architecture

           (I'm not even sure what I'd call my current job,
           or how it fits with everything else)

So ... the web & software parts came first, but I moved to the database
world, and later the information science world ... I'm not really in the
library world.  I have a masters from a library school, but it's not an
MLS.  I just follow the discussions here, because some of the problems
are similar to the ones I deal with in federating legacy database
systems.

...

As with the comments on how to learn -- in some ways, I prefer classes
over book learning, as it gives you a chance to ask questions for
clarification, and it gives you a dedicated block of learning time (as
opposed to trying to squeeze it between whatever other tasks you might
have going on).  But neither one are of any use to me unless I get a
chance to apply it -- and I need to actually have a need before going to
the class.  (learning about it, then not using it for a year doesn't help
me -- I need to _want_ the class going in, and prefer to have a specific
problem that I'm trying to solve with knowledge that I'll take away from
the class).

Books work for answering some of the smaller questions, but I don't get
the same sort of alternate perspective into the problem that I do
from classes.


-----
Joe Hourcle