Libraries Suck

Librarians from across Atlantic Canada are meeting in Charlottetown this week for the 2017 Atlantic Provinces Library Association conference. I’m presenting a talk this afternoon on my experiences as Hacker in Residence at Robertson Library called Why your Library Needs a Hacker in Residence  (and what I’ve learned being one).

I’m a let-the-cat-out-of-the-bag-early kind of speaker, so you can grab the slides for my talk now as a PDF. Or, if you’re near the Rodd Charlottetown from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. today, you’re welcome to crash the talk: just walk in like you own the place, and come up to the second floor to the scenic Richmond Room and take a seat.

As my jumping off point, I’m starting with a quote from Dave Winer’s seminal 1995 blog post We Make Shitty Software:

Software is a process, it’s never finished, it’s always evolving. That’s its nature. We know our software sucks. But it’s shipping! Next time we’ll do better, but even then it will be shitty. The only software that’s perfect is one you’re dreaming about. Real software crashes, loses data, is hard to learn and hard to use. But it’s a process. We’ll make it less shitty. Just watch!

This by way of putting my first slide in context:

Which is to say: because libraries suck, and libraries know they suck, they are uniquely capable of enthusiastically integrating a Hacker in Residence into their midst. It’s a process.