Stuart Weibel on Weibel Lines highlighted “…a terrific audio entry from the Chronicle of Higher Education Techtherapy feature about Libraries and IT departments” which I would like to mention as well.
[Described at the Chronicle as "Librarians and IT staff might share more similarities than they would like to admit. Scott Carlson and Warren Arbogast, Tech Therapy's hosts, talk about the rift between the two groups. (13:37)"]
Stuart’s gleans the following from the podcast:
“…The similarities between the groups outnumber the differences, though, and these similarities are probably the greater source of tension between the groups. According to the dialog:
- the people skills of both groups are often perceived to be broken
- both groups work in a changing work environment characterized by uncertainty about their future roles
- resistance to change is widespread (sorry folks, but isn’t this true for most everyone?)
- both communities are threatened by commoditized web services
- distractions of turf wars often impair effectiveness
- service flailing — rapid deployment of services to see what sticks — is common (not necessarily a bad thing in an environment of fast-paced change)
- second-class consciousness – librarians are not ‘real’ faculty… IT staff are just techies…”
