Hi folks -

What do you include in orientation when you hire a programmer
(excellent, experienced, of course), who isn't familiar with
library-land?  MARC is a given, ditto the ILS, plus e-resource
management back end (OpenURL parsers, proxies and the like).  From
those of you who came into libraries for other industries:  what do
you wish you knew about libraries, library/info science, and library
operations when you began? I'm especially interested in anything which
gave you an "ah-ha!" moment when you were working with library data --
the implicit things which didn't make sense until you knew why those
crazy librarians did things the way they did.   Also - which resources
were particularly valuable to you as you gained familiarity with your
new environment?

Your insight is deeply appreciated,

Laura J. Smart
Metadata Services Manager, Caltech Library
[log in to unmask]@gmail.com