System librarianing is not what I expected it to be

Whenever I heard the term 'System Librarian' I imagined an IT geek type whose entire universe was data and systems and parameters and computer geekerism.

Its not.

Im pretty new to this game having fallen into it all because I volunteered to look after our old system. Looking after that entailed..... well.....not much.... cos it didn't DO much. Which is why they decided to buy something new and flashy that would do everything Including make coffee.

It doesn't..... make coffee that is.....

There are elements of geekness involved sure. And I have a greater understanding of the nature of 'data' and 'systems' now than I ever did. What fascinates me most though is the peopleness of systems.

By that I mean the impact a system has on its users. This is what takes up my time, and what HAS taken up much of my time for the last two and a half years. Not getting a system to work or making it better, but dealing with people.

People seem to become victims to systems. The system which is meant to aid our work and help us to do our jobs more efficiently becomes 'in charge.' Otherwise intelligent beings will fall into a heap of illogical thinking because the system is not doing what we think it should. People view it as a thinking being which should just know.

An example is one of my colleagues, a great librarian with smarts asked me why a book was appearing on her pick list when it was in a not for loan collection. In our system reserves are placed on a bib record so logic tells you (or me at least) that the system doesn't know what copy you are about to scan, where it lives and what restrictions there are on its loan. Therefore it would appear on a pick list, along with all the other copies. But apparently when the system is in charge human intelligent logic disappears.

There are of course those who lack intelligence or logic for whom the system is a completely foreign world. Like the librarian who couldn't understand why her serial orders weren't renewing and putting in the new price... errr because you have to tell the system you have renewed it.

To me its all very obvious and I don't consider myself particularly intellegent or even IT savvy. But maybe I should stop thinking like a computer system and start thinking like a person.