Google Earth Technology and Questions

I'm torn about Google Earth. On one hand, the technology that enables me to look at real-life pictures of my neighborhood, the farm I grew up on, etc... is fascinating. How do they piece all those images together so well? The street views can be so helpful, especially if you're trying to locate a business or something and you can view ahead of time what the area looks like.

On the other hand... I value my privacy. Does the world really need to know what my house looks like and that my chimney needs replacing? No. Do I want Google on my street taking pictures of my house? Not really. Do I have a choice?

On to the questions:

• How has technology already changed your job? Your personal life?

Technology has changed my job by making me responsible for more activity in the same time period. This means that, for example, not only do I have to make signs to advertise an upcoming program, I also must put the program on the online calendar, make certain it shows up on the Kid's page of our website, and make certain our Web guy gets the info onto the library TV up at the circulation desk... there's a lot more steps to take.

In my personal life, it has changed a lot of things. Mainly how I contact people--instead of trying to reach my son on the phone, I text him because I know he will look at a text but may not bother to answer his phone.

• How do you think we can best prepare to serve the upcoming generations who are tech-savvy at a very young age?
  

I think the best thing we can do is to encourage exploration beyond the known. You'd think that kids, being so savvy, would just jump on the online catalog and look stuff up for themselves but they don't. They're almost afraid to try and learn anything different from what they already know. I also think that kids today don't have time to process. Information is just jammed in constantly and they need a space to escape, to contemplate... the library can be that haven.

• How could your current library services be enhanced by technology? Or how have they been enhanced already?

In my library we blog, have an online book club, offer online sign-ups for programs, and are expanding our digital book collection for techno-readers and listeners, just to name a few things.