The Trouble With Innovation

I'm a library student, learning the skills in college (and eventually grad school). There's a fair bit of promotion of "innovative programs" from time to time. I'm trying to be fair as I read these things, but I find the use of Jargon by library writers like Dysart to be really off-putting. Jargon gets used a lot by con men and people after other people's money (OPM). This being a retirement community, con men after practically a constant threat. They call twice a day with Nigerian Prince Trusting and Your Close Relative is in jail in mexico and need your credit card to bail them out. And they get enough hits to justify the calls. They often use jargon, and I've suffered through all sorts of "programs" and cults over the decade so my filter is primed and ready for the next one. And maybe Dysart is just really excited about the subjects. But I'm not.

I work in libraries because they have books. People come to the libraries to read books. They have internet at home. They don't need that at the library. They find a book and borrow it and bring it back when they're done. Know what self-checkout kiosks do? They get ignored and people still wait in line to see the librarian. And when people use the kiosks half the time they don't work, but print a receipt as if they did, so people take the book home and bring it back, so half the books out aren't checked out. That that come back doesn't fix the issue, because the number of checkouts impacts the budget and which books get weeded (thrown out). So the automatic kiosks which SHOULD solve problems created ones we didn't anticipate. This is a law of engineering, btw. Its called the Law of Unintended Consequences. This is important and relevant to all library programs. The people supporting their promotion gain something from them being funded, but are not responsible when they fail. Until such time and failure is punished, stupid programs will continue to be a problem in tax-based govt services, like libraries and schools. So I always think about whether a program is going to have unintended consequences, and ponder just what those consequences will cost.

Think about that when you're excited about some jargon filled program that only costs OPM. Sigh. Wasting public money is not the way to get better funding. For a library, it isn't innovation which will save you. People want boring libraries. They want new books in them, too, and you can't buy the books if you're wasting funds on BS. Stick to the basics and only invest in things you know will work. Not what's hot in some city far away. That's what I think.