Educators That Rock!: Michael Sauers
Michael Sauers is the technology innovation librarian for the Nebraska Library Commission, the chair of the Nebraska Library Association and a frequent conference presenter. He has also authored nine books, and maintains a very funny and forward thinking blog at The Travelin’ Librarian.
Michael earned his master’s degree in library science from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy, and has been working in libraries for 15 years.
As Sauers appears to be part of an inner circle of technology librarian bloggers, findingEducation asked if he worried that other librarians might have difficulty relating to him.
“I am always learning. They’re learning, too. I would hope that if it ever gets to the point where people can’t relate to what I’m doing, I would say I probably shouldn’t be doing it anymore,” he said.
Sauers tweets @msauers
fE: Why did you become a librarian?
MS: Through high school and college, I worked in bookstores. A year after I graduated, I was still living at home and still working in a bookstore at the mall. One day my parents asked me, “What are you doing with the rest of your life?” So I considered graduate school, trying to figure out what I could possibly do with an American Studies degree. And I realized, “Hah, library school! Hmm. I love books!” I realize it’s a cliché, but that’s why I went to library school.
I fully intended to be a reference librarian, but then in about 1994, the Web happened. I got to library school and discovered the Internet. I latched on and started teaching computer stuff to the other students there, and I pretty much haven’t stopped since.
fE: At the Nebraska Library Commission, you’ve adopted Helene Blowers’ Learning 2.0 (23 Things) program. Has it been successful?
MS: My job as technology innovation librarian is to introduce new technologies to the staff, and librarians around the state. We use the 23 Things Program en masse, apart from updating some technologies and changing one or two lessons. We ran the program over nine weeks using our staff as guinea pigs.
Next, we expanded the program’s length to 18 weeks and opened it up to the other libraries in the state. We offered 15 credit hours as a kind of bribe, but you had to complete the whole program. And we had about a 50 percent completion rate, which I’m told is really good.
When it was over, people were asking for more. So we continued adding one new thing a month. We are now on Thing #36. This month, we are going back to basics and revisiting Flickr.
fE: Your blog blends both your professional and personal interests, and it doesn’t skirt controversy. It’s one of the most popular library blogs on the Web. How did that happen?
MS: I have no idea. In some cases, when I make it onto a top 10 list, I think someone just searched “library blog” and I came up. Other times, I’m not on the list, because I don’t focus enough on library topics. I do know I’ve gotten a speaking gig or two because someone found me through my blog.
As for the content, I put myself out there. This is me. Very early on, I decided not to say, “I’ll have my work stuff over here and my personal stuff over there.” I don’t have enough time to try to separate those things.
Yes, I’ve said some controversial things, but I hope people understand that there is actual honest thought behind those opinions. If someone down the road is going to decide not to hire me because of what’s on my blog, I probably didn’t want to work there.
fE: In a lecture for TEDxNYED, an education conference, Henry Jenkins, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, compares World of Warcraft with bowling, and explains that these types of social networks are critical to civic engagement. Do you think that’s a valid statement? How are social networks critical to you?
MS: I am not a World of Warcraft player, because I know my limits and if I played I would play. (He laughs). I watched another video that compared blogs and the underground press of the 1960s and 1970s. So, social networks have always been around.
Where I’ve gotten in my career is a result of social networks of one form or another. I probably have way more friends spread around the country and the world than I do here in Lincoln, Nebraska, because of Flickr and Twitter and blogs. I see these people maybe twice a year at conferences, but don’t have to spend an hour with each one of them saying, “So, what have you been up to?” I know from Flickr if somebody took a vacation, and I know from their blogs what projects they’ve been working on.
So Professor Jenkins is right—World of Warcraft and Flickr and Twitter are just like the bowling league or the high school science fiction fan club I was a member of, but now we’re meeting online.
fE: Due to cuts to state, local and school budgets, library advocacy is becoming more and more crucial. Next week, during Nebraska Library Snapshot Week, libraries around the state will document what they’re doing. What are other ways librarians can keep themselves relevant, and even indispensable, in tight times?
MS: Library Snapshot Week is a project we adopted from ALA’s (the American Library Association) national library week and it’s a great idea. Blogs are another great way to tell your story. That’s why we’re doing a statewide WordPress project. There are over 150 independent libraries in Nebraska and many don’t have Web sites. We’re helping them build sites that are blog-based, so the libraries can say, “Here’s what we’re doing and here’s why we’re doing it.”
Many academic librarians learn what information their faculty is seeking, set up Google Alerts and send the faculty e-mails with links to the topics they’re interested in. It’s that weekly reminder saying, “Hey, the library exists. We’ll help you find what you need.” For public librarians, this service could be extended to the town council and the Mayor. Go to local chamber of commerce meetings and say, “Tell us what you’re interested in, we’ll find the information for you.”
You can set up Twitter searches to find tweets about your town. Perhaps someone writes, “I’m looking for a good pizza place in town.” Answer the question using the library account and they’ll know they got their answer from the library. It’s that little nudge to get people to think, “The library answered that last question. Maybe they can answer this next question.”
fE: Are there a lot of questions that people don’t realize they can ask librarians?
MS: Many people don’t know they can get help from librarians, period. In my bookstore years, people would call and ask, “Can you look something up in the Guinness Book of World Records for me?” And I’d say, “No, we’re a bookstore. But you can call the library.” And they’d say, “Really?”
Librarians are not good at marketing our services. We do all this work for everybody’s good, and we don’t get paid a lot to do it. To oversimplify it, we just think everybody should love us, and it’s never that simple. People who use the library generally love us. But there’s a whole population out there who is clueless about what the library can do for them and those are the people we need to reach.
fE: From an outsider’s perspective, it seems as though you and librarians like David Lee King, Sarah Houghton Jan and Buffy Hamilton form this inner circle of elite technology librarians. Is it difficult for other librarians to relate to you?
MS: I’ve heard other technology librarians have gotten some very negative responses from some colleagues who say, “Everybody knows who you are, but I work here too!”
I haven’t really gotten that. Maybe because a core portion of my duties is training, it’s always in the back of my head that I didn’t always know what I know. I am always learning, they’re learning, too. I would hope that if it ever gets to the point that people can’t relate to what I’m doing, I would say I probably shouldn’t be doing it anymore. Knowing how to do something and being able to teach someone else how to do it are two completely different skill sets, especially in computers.
Michael Sauers’ Favorite Sites:
Nebraska Library Association
The Chief’s Corner
Hootsuite
Android Guys
Presentation Zen
