Hi, Laura.

Great question, and one that I have asked myself many times. It is sparsely populated, but there is a wiki page about this here: http://wiki.code4lib.org/index.php/A_Guide_for_the_Perplexed

It would be a service to the community if you added any answers you find there. 

Bess

On Jul 20, 2011, at 9:04 AM, Laura Smart wrote:

> 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