Thing 22--Staying Current

It is so sweet that 23 Things thinks that decisions on the addition of gadgets, widgets, and other -ets are driven by working librarians and paraprofessionals, so we must know every new thing that comes along. If only it were true. These choices are made away from the service desks, so it's not that necessary for front-line staff to be au courant with every New Thing. We're going to get what the higher levels want, and we'll learn enough of that to help patrons until the Next Big Thing comes along, whether it's Thing 24 or 124. Whether it works, whether anybody wants it, or whether anyone uses it is irrelevant. It is a system that has held since the memory of the bibliothecarius was replaced by a bound MS volume because the monk in charge of the scriptorium wanted to bug the one from the monastery over the hill and it won't change any time soon.

One pays a certain amount of attention to what is passing through the journals or on news sites, but it's not a good idea to assume that even if something looks useful, we'll get it because it has to be noticed by the journals first. Ironically, technical novelties, like slang, once they have been around long enough to be noticed by administrators, are frequently no longer novelties, having become either established techniques or hopelessly vieux jeux.