Just another day in the life...of someone else.

Rochelle at Tinfoil+Racoon tells a great story in this post about helping a friend find resources for a paper he was writing. She taught her friend how to use a database and rejoiced when everything finally "clicked" in an aha-moment of epic proportions.

Stories like this nearly bring me to tears every time I read them. And just so you know, I don't cry easily.

I am amazed and delighted whenever I hear a librarian tell a story about how they helped connect users with the information they needed. To me, it's the coolest part about being a librarian. And, since I have stage fright of epic proportions, I'm glad there are others out there pulling my weight.

What struck me, though, is her friend's need to apologize for not being able to use the database himself. Rochelle writes, "Something is really wrong if library services make people feel stupid." And, honestly, I couldn't agree with her more.

It's not a new idea to say that if a user can't find something that it's not his or her fault. "The user isn't broken," says Karen Schneider in this post. It's an idea that gets repeated over and over again in the Web 2.0/Library 2.0 world, but yet the OPACs vendor are selling us still suck and our databases still need someone to translate them from library jargon-ese to human.

There are lots of people on the front lines of the war against outdated thinking and advocating for the user. People like Rochelle who are willing to work with someone until he has the aha-moment that they teach us about in library school inspire me. But I feel like until libraries start voting with their pocketbooks in a more consistent way that vendors will continue to give us what they've always given us. And as long as vendors give us what they've always given us, people like Rochelle will still have to help people translate from library jargon-ese to human.

So what can I do, I ask myself, to help create change? I'm not sure, really, and it's part of why I started this blog.

--Erin, rambly