As Time Goes By

The upcoming retirement of one of our staff has gotten me musing on my own long career. Since Vicki and I are the only ones here that have been in the Library biz for any length of time and in other states, I often talk with her about how we did things back in the dark ages, and we marvel at how things have changed. She is a wonderful person to actually listen to me drone on, but we do have fun shocking the younger staff about what was protocol back in the day.

Just yesterday we were discussing what to do with an older set of encyclopedias. Vicki and I were on the get rid of them, this is old technology, there are better resources available through the library online, etc. side of the discussion. (We are pretty forward looking people in spite of our age, mostly because we have lived through radical changes in the library world and know to get on the bandwagon early on). I reminded Vicki of the fact that when we were new in the field, the expectation, actually rule, was that you had to cite a resource to answer every and all reference/informational questions. What is the capital of the state? We had to pull out a reliable resource and say, "According to the , the state's capital is ___." The world has become a little more trusting - for better or worse - and we allow people to answer from personal knowledge for questions like this.

Everything has changed rapidly and radically over the past 30+ years, and libraries are no different. I don't believe there is a single thing we do now that we did the same way when I first started out. And that's good, it's important that we keep step with the times, to keep our relevance as life rushes along.

But I will miss these talks with Vicki, and I will miss her consummate professionalism and dedication. The library and the community will be the poorer with her departure. But time keeps moving, and we will all benefit from the skills of her replacement. But for now, I want to thank Vicki for all she has done, especially and irreplaceably for me.