Two Groups of Librarians

The Philippine Normal University Library and Information Science Alumni Association, Inc. just wrapped up a workshop on "Cataloging in a Networked Environment" with Ms. Estela Montejo and Ms. Michelle Panti as resource persons.

As emcee of the workshop, I can group the participants who are mostly school librarians into two: the net-savvy and the not-net-savvy librarians. For the net-savvy participants, the topic of the workshop was nothing new to them but for the not-net-savvy participants, it was an all together new experience because there were hands-on exercises. Some of those who belong to the latter group were hesitant to browse the Internet and were clearly not used to handling computers. There was this one particular librarian I assisted who was not familiar with using a mouse and had difficulty controlling the cursor. Some do not even know where the address bar until it was pointed out to them.

Over all we conducted a successful activity but judging from the evaluation of the participants, some commented the content was basic and should have been more complex but on the other hand there were those who commented that it was a first time for them. Given this scenario, I cannot help but notice a dichotomy. And for someone involved in the continuing education of librarians, I began to ask how can we as an Association help bridge the gap between these two groups in terms of offerings without any group feeling left out?

There is so much out there to learn and yet the participants still clamor for learning basic skills like indexing and more cataloging. I guess in the end, whatever activity will be planned, it will be a choice to give one for the haves or for the have nots but never for the two.