Most of us are Humanities types, I’m sure, and therefore probably have come across Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs once or twice before. If not, here’s a short explanation.
Maslow hypothesized that there are certain fundamental needs that need to be met before others can. At the base of well-being are physiological needs such as food and shelter. Without these, we have a hard time taking care of the other levels of needs, such as security, love, esteem, and finally self-actualization.
I’m not here to play amateur psychology prof, I just think that this model might be useful for thinking about technology in libraries. Below is a diagram illustrating the levels of technology needs for libraries. Just as in Maslow’s scale, those at the base are core, essential needs that must be met for survival. As we look up the pyramid, we see technologies that can be considered higher functions.
Libraries are different enough that it was take more thought than I’m willing to give this right now to come up with a prescriptive pyramid. This is just a sample of what a tech needs pyramid for a public library could look like. In your tech planning, make sure your base needs are met, whatever they may specifically be. Then keep on building.
Comments
Good stuff, I think, worth developing if you have the time to do that. It might serve as a counterbalance to the combating forces of “Look at the shiny new thing that EVERY LIBRARY MUST HAVE RIGHT NOW or you’ll lose all your younger users!” and “We’re doing just fine, we don’t need any of that new-fangled stuff.”
This is very nice Aaron. I might also add “blog” to the third level, and LAN parties to the top level. But that’s just the gamer in me talking :) Another thought—where does “staff technology competency” fall into all this?