Defending Technologies in Your Library: Allocate, Advocate, Illuminate, Demonstrate!

Inspired by recent events at our own library in which some patrons have been challenging the additions of new technologies (especially those for children), this presentation aims to share practical ways in which libraries can defend their choice of tech to patrons, coworkers, management, investors, and the public in general, obliterating the simplified and outdated concept of libraries that prevails in the consciousness of many even today. Featuring engaging and humorous illustrations by the author to accompany each concept, this presentation will be impassioned, fun, and full of viable ideas for any library. Allocate! Advocate! Illuminate! Demonstrate! We must selectively allocate suitable tech in our libraries according to our physical space, our funds, and the various needs of the communities we serve. We must proactively advocate for our tech selection through policy, marketing, staff training, and mission statements. We must tactfully illuminate those who do not understand the valid addition of new technologies by educating them on the role libraries play in providing equal access to information and entertainment to all, and assuring them that technologies are not a threat to books- technologies are an addition to library offerings, not a subtraction. We must actively demonstrate the usefulness of technologies in our libraries to patrons and stakeholders in programming, 1 on 1, through written words and statistic keeping.