 So, this is Kim Doherty with the iSchool career area, and I am speaking with associate professor Dr. Michael Stevens, who is one of our most beloved faculty members here in the iSchool. And Dr. Stevens has agreed to speak with me today about the emerging technologies and digital services pathways. So basically I'm going to ask Dr. Stevens some questions, but I've also encouraged him to take us down any pathways that he feels are helpful for you to know about. So starting out, Dr. Stevens, first of all, thank you for joining us. I am happy to be with you today. Terrific. All right. Our first question, why do you feel this career pathway will continue to have relevance in multiple types of library or organizational settings? Okay. Well, it's very important right now that a pathway such as this, and it has two, actually two offshoots, one that focuses on emerging technologies and one that focuses on digital services. I just made a mistake. Okay. There we go. Okay. We're going to go back and we're going to do this again. Okay. Yeah. It's always good to get that out of the way early on. Okay. So we'll ask Dale or whoever edits just like in a second I'll be quiet and then I'm going to answer it for real. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I was looking at too many things at one time. Okay. That's a great question. What I see is that in every type of library and information environment, we will have connections to technology, to the emerging technologies of the day, which is fast changing and to how we engage with people around technology and services. And it can be any and all types of libraries, any and all types of information environments, K through 12 public libraries, university, community college, special libraries, everything in between museums, all of those things. Because one of the things that we are doing is we are helping people understand how the world works. And also the digital side of it all is understanding how digital literacies or I call them life literacies because we really need everybody needs to have a reasonable grip on how things work to get by these days. So understanding these life literacies and helping people, that happens across all the organizational settings that we're talking about today. So that's why you can come to this pathway from any interest and find something that works or some mild markers maybe to grab some classes from or whatever that might be. That makes a lot of sense because to your point, these are becoming life literacies. They're not sort of stuck in a box on the side as oh, you could go over there and do that thing. They're now interwoven throughout every aspect of life. So next question then, what particular particularly engages you personally about this type of work and career pathway? Okay. This is very much like the class I teach called the hyperlinked library, which is an emerging technologies class that is really a humanistic focused class. I really believe what we do in library and information services is tending to the information needs of our users. And that definition in my mind has changed over the last few decades and very specifically in the last few years. We are now talking about offering a safe space for every person who comes through our doors to learn and grow. We're designing welcoming spaces and services for folks who come together and collaborate and exchange ideas that might be in a beautiful, gorgeous building and might also be on a digital platform or some digital service that folks have created coming out on the other side of these pathways. It might be making digital communities and helping them thrive. And one of the things we do with info 200, which is one of the core classes, is we get our students thinking about what it means to meet the information needs of specific communities because eventually they may be building information resources, community platforms, et cetera, for various groups. And finally, I think everything we do points toward promoting learning and well-being. And that's why it really is not out of the question for a librarian well-versed in emerging tech user experience digital services to also say, well, yeah, maybe we should have the community closet, which is an example from the Capital District Libraries here in Michigan in Lansing where they have provided a space, a nice little closet space, beautiful door. You can go in and there are personal items that somebody might need. There are snacks, et cetera. So promoting well-being at the same time as offering information services, I really believe it goes hand in hand. Naysayers might say, oh, no, that's not the role of the library. I'm sorry. The library is one of the last places we can go where we're not paying admission, we're not spending money for some reason to walk through the doors and take advantage of services. So if we can offer through partnerships in the community or whatever, support via basic human needs as well as referrals out into the community to other services through digital platforms or through just a welcoming safe place in the library, absolutely. I am all for it. Now I talked a lot there. I want to make sure I answered your question. You did. And I think that one of the things that comes through is that digital platforms and emerging technologies are not the point themselves so much as what they enable this sort of multifaceted, multi-embedded community library to begin doing in ways that it couldn't do before. And that that will only continue as the opportunities for the library to contribute to their communities continues to grow and grow, which evidently and obviously it is. Absolutely. And I talk a lot in my classes about the Dock 1 library in Whirlpool, Stenmark. And I quote the director of that library that she said, we built our library for people, not books. And that's exactly what we're seeing now across our field. Right. I think that's a wonderful way to put it. All right. So next question, how do you see opportunities in emerging technologies and digital services evolving and are growing over the course of an LIS career? As I know, a lot of students are looking at a career pathway and saying, okay, does this offer the opportunity for me to continue to grow in knowledge, grow in expertise, grow in contribution and impact? And so a question would be, in what directions might students' careers go as the field continues to adapt to new technologies and challenges? Oh, absolutely. Okay. You may, at first glance, look at these two pathways and say, oh, this is for getting started in the field or these are the, like, where I might start, but I will leave that behind if I move up into management or leadership positions. To me, that is not the case because this understanding, again, I don't want to repeat myself a bunch of times, but understanding how we use technology to meet the needs of our communities, that cuts across all the various levels that we will find ourselves in our careers from, okay, the incoming, brand new, newly minted out of the SJSU program librarian coming into interview at a great, big, cool library somewhere showing off their skills where they understand where technology fits, how it works and how it meets the needs of people, all the way to someone who is moving into leadership. And I stress this idea of being compassionate and using your heart. And I think that can begin from the get-go as you come into the field as a new librarian, all the way up to being a compassionate leader, because I really believe we need that. We, management is much different these days than it was when I was in library school way, way back in the 90s. We really, yeah, we really need that understanding of the human experience, compassion, empathy, all of those things. And the pandemic has taught us that we need folks that can take all of these things and pivot very quickly. One of the things I did a few months ago is I checked in with some library directors I know and I said, so what's been the coolest thing that has happened in your library in because of the pandemic? And they said things like we pivoted to curbside and that worked out really well. We moved programs outside and we started circulating Chromebooks for people to use right in front of the library where they could take them outside in the fresh air. So what we need is somebody that understands technology, what people might need, and then to be in the leadership position to do those things. And I know that we will eventually come out of this age of the pandemic, but I think we will learn a lot from it, but there will also be future instances where this type of decision may be super, super important. And of course those pivots that we did from taking programs from the library auditorium to Zoom, we need that kind of thinking at the top level and as a compassionate leader to say, yeah, to all the people working on it, like maybe the people that the leader is in charge of, go do it. I trust you. I support you. I understand what we're all going for. This is what I want you to do. So I think it follows you having this understanding and we will grow. You grow as you move through your career, an information professional will pull in every experience they have, every new service they create, every service they get rid of because maybe it's not working anymore. All of those things will inform the next decision and the next decision. That makes a really good sense because if you consider someone who's moving up into a leadership role, that's all about strategy. Strategy informed by an understanding of what technology enables you to do and enables your organization to do in making those pivots and in meeting those needs. You may not have the coding language called, but if you understand what the enabling outcome of that technology is, then you are a much more effective leader and very much to your point. Then you trust your people and say, okay, I know you can do that with it. Go do it. You're the expert here. So that's a great point, Dr. Stevens. Right. Okay. And that is so important. You said that because sometimes we say no to things as administrators because we don't understand them. So carry all that knowledge right along with you. You will need it when you are a manager. Sorry. Very, very good point. Okay. Next question. What would you most want students to understand about this field to determine whether it might be a great fit for them or at least one to explore further? Oh, excellent question. Okay. I have a few things to say about this. Great. Do not. And I'm so happy that this will be put out for our students to hear, especially those that may just be starting like in the core and they're finding their way and they're making decisions. Do not say, oh, I'm not tech savvy enough or, oh, I don't know how to do all of those things. Guess what? You came to the right place. This is where you can learn to do all of those things. And I think it's more important that you want to try than saying, no, this isn't for me because I'm not tech savvy or I'm not a techie or all those things that we've heard people say and it's totally fine. But if you're not a techie, guess what? Now's the time because it will help you, just everything we said before this, it will help you serve your communities in a much better way. There's an old, old article from one of the early versions of Library Journal by Patricia Paylor called The Heart of the Matter. And she said, the best librarians are those who find in their jobs whatever they may be, the excitement and adventure that reward only the adventurous in spirit. So back in the 50s, that was doing super cool things with the card catalog or whatever to get books in people's hands. And now we should be adventurous with technology and with how that might serve people. The other thing I will say just very quickly is I am all about the soft skills and I would much rather have someone come in with a high degree of curiosity that, yeah, they need to figure out how these things work because that helps so much. And yes, you're going to make mistakes and yes, you'll learn from them and you'll go on. I think curiosity is important. I say soft skills are heart skills. We actually did a program about that in, it was 2020 already, oh my goodness. Creativity, confidence, empathy, of course, which I've mentioned, compassion and just understanding how people use information. So don't worry if you're not tech savvy, you're in the right place. There are instructors across our curriculum that will teach you how to do various things that will give you gentle nudges when you need them. That's what I do in my classes. You should be curious and you should approach each thing, each platform, each technology, each new little social media, whatever with a sense of curiosity and that idea of, yeah, I can take this on, that I can do this. Right. Two comments that I make to my own students are, it's okay to say I don't know how to do this, as long as your phrase is I don't know how to do this yet. And the other one is the strongest skill and gift you can have going through your career is passionate curiosity. So I totally, totally agree with everything you're saying there. So one last question. What else would you want potential students considering this career path to know? Is there anything we haven't covered, say on the pathway page or in our discussion so far that you'd like them to think about? Absolutely. Well, I will say again, I'll say a couple of things again. Everything is rapidly changing. So the mindset and the basic skills are probably more important, including those soft skills or hard skills are more important than the individual tools. Those things are going to change over time, but if you can learn how to learn a new whatever, then you can just keep doing that and doing that. I think that will serve our students very, very well. The other thing, and this is something I've been talking a lot about recently with a colleague out in the field, out in professional practice named Stacy Levin, is bringing the power of joy to what we do in libraries, information centers, just bringing joy to people's lives. And that can come in so many different forms like learning experiences, exploring new topics, the way stories play out in all of their different forms from the printed word to audio to video and beyond to virtual reality and augmented reality and all of those things. It really is. And here's how I'm repeating myself one last time. It really is about people and the heart, how we go forward. That sounds like a wonderful way to approach both this sort of program in the in the high school, as well as a career path going forward, a wonderful mix of of high touch, high tech and tech as an enabling but but person centered tool. So that's wonderful. Well, Dr. Stevens, thank you for giving us this time. We appreciate it so much and wonderful. Well, I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day and week and month. Oh, thank you. All right. Take care. You too. Thank you. Take care. Bye bye.