This is a topic I can talk at length about and might just -- with later reposts and whatnot. But for now, I just have to say that I am truly astounded at the lack of tech literacy that the average public library user has in this digital age.
When I think this, my next thought is then: okay, let's put things in perspective (thanks, me). The perspective: I've been using a computer since I was an elementary school-aged child (in the United States), but am also of an age where the Internet age was still somewhat new (Google search wasn't really a thing 'til I was in junior high). So I was familiar with floppy disks for a time before they were phased out in favor of disc drives for CDs. I've rewound cassette tapes that I played in my Sony Walkman, but also had a portable Sony CD player and later an iPod Mini. I interacted with Clippy in Microsoft Word and used Skype before its ~mysterious~ disappearance coincided with the arrival of Zoom.
By now you're probably thinking why don't you just say that you're a m*********? and then wow, are you seriously censoring m*********? this is Tumblr, sweaty, we don't do that here (okay, this is just what I'm saying to myself. But maybe on a rabbit trail that may or may not be relevant to the focus of this Tumblr, I'll talk about why I don't like that classification).
ANYWAY -- returning to the context of perspective: I've grown up with a lot of changing technologies and would proudly and not inaccurately describe myself as being somewhat tech savvy.
That is why I find it incredibly baffling when patrons enter the library and ask me to: help them log into their email account which they claim they never had a password for, assist them with using a flatbed or tray scanner and then wondering aloud where the fax machine is (which they would also need help using if it did exist), print things, copy things, download things, type and then untype things, minimize windows, open menus, simply use the computer.
I'm trying not to sound rude and I know that I sound rude because I know that I'm coming from a place of privilege (kind of) and that some people just don't know how to do these things. Sometimes because of age, or access, or ability. I get that, and that libraries are for everyone. But it does not stop my mounting feelings of frustration when I discover that the library for many people is nothing more than a print center. Another site of a FedEx Kinkos UPS USPS outpost. And even when I can get over that library dream bubble bursting fact, it is the strange rude attitudes with which these people who do not know how to send documents to the printer demand my attention and service that really irks me.
I found myself oddly put at ease recently when I at first tensed at the sight of a patron approaching my shared reference desk to of course ask for help with emailscanningprintingthings and prefaced it by saying that they were "not good with technology". I'm sure with more thought I could be checked for this as well, but in that moment I was much more willing and open to assisting them because there was an initial moment of honesty. I need help. Can you help me? Yes. I'd be happy to. Instead of finger pulling me over or yelling across the room or staring at me like I'm an alien when I suggest they enter their password. I'm not opposed to helping people, but I want to be treated with respect when doing so. I don't want to enter the interaction under the strange pretense that I've been waiting for them all day, just twiddling my thumbs until they arrived just so I could help them print copies of documents (usually very sensitive ones as well like SS cards and IDs).
If you are perhaps at this point wondering why I'm working at a public library in the first place if I seem to not be liking it there, well buddy, for you to really understand that you'd have to be paying attention to the state of the job market and our abysmal economy. *sobsinlackofjobopportunitiesinmychosenfield*