Unprepared

My assignment this week in my introductory Library Science course has me checking out a lot of Library Science related blogs and other technologies that are gaining in popularity in the field. Today I was looking at the Library Success wiki, which pretty much has information or links to examples of all the technologies I have been looking into this week, such as the best software for IM services in libraries, blogs, RSS Feeds, and podcasts. This wiki also has links to scholarly articles and professional websites. It feels like it is almost a "one stop shop" for the latest trends and information in the field. It is a site that I will be bookmarking and browsing through on a regular basis now, mostly because in just browsing for about thirty minutes, I have been feeling increasingly unprepared and unsettled for the career path I have chosen.
I think I underestimated the field. I underestimated the constant struggle to maintain funding, the struggle to keep patrons engaged in their libraries, and the way in which the field is transitioning into the digital age. I think the increasing necessity for librarians to be technologically savvy is what makes me most unsettled, because I am not even close to being a technology wonk.
I was a history major in my undergraduate work- and I am going to be getting an M.A. in public history along with my Library Science degree- microfilm, moldy books, and yellowing newspapers have been my M.O. for a long time. The trend to digitization makes me nervous because I know it is inevitable, but part of the experience for me, being a historian/librarian is that I can go to the archives and all of these artifacts and crumbling sources are right at my fingers. I handle papers that were written with a quill and sealed with wax everyday. The tangibility of such sources is why I decided upon this field in the first place. Digitizing all the records and eliminating the necessity for patrons to have to come into an institution and handle the records or artifacts themselves takes aways something from the research process I feel like. Tangibility makes one connect with the project more. And yes, I grumble about having to make the three hour drive to South Bend to get to my archive, but there is something to be said for having to gently turn and smooth the papers of turn of the century newsprint. But I might be that those of us who love paper are a dying breed.
The recognition that I am behind the times is unnerving, but it was good to be given a wake-up call. I think that I need to learn to reconcile my love for the tangible to the fact that in order for me to ever get a job, and for libraries and archives to remain operational at all, we have to recognize that most of the public, our patrons, are consumers of speed and ease of accessibility. Digitization provides this, and I am going to do my best to up my level of savvy.