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foto: photocase 436781343621

Lee Dallas enthüllt in The Greatest Secret of IT Revealed das Geheimnis, warum deine EDV-Abteilung dich, den Kunden, hasst.

The secret is – your IT department really does hate you. That’s right. You are not paranoid and it is not your imagination. Before you cringe and get defensive you have to understand that this is a conditioned response brought on by the horribly dysfunctional relationship between IT departments and the businesses they serve. As with all counseling sessions we begin by asking what are the things about the other party that cause this response. A few things are undeniable in your relationship.

Krafty meint, dass es im Gesundheitswesen ähnlich ist, aber ich finde die Ähnlichkeiten mit dem Bibliothekswesen noch schlagender:

• You, the library user, break things – you don’t mean to but it happens. (irgendeine Zeitschrift ist plötzlich offline und schon nervst du die Auskunft damit!) And when it does you are the source for extra work keeping somebody from the very important problem you dumped on them yesterday.
• You control the money – the Library though they rarely admit it, exists to serve you not the other way around. The budget comes from those parts of the customers that really do important things such as the students, the scientists and the physicians and this gives you a power over the Library that breeds contempt.
• You ask for things you cannot afford – while you have ultimate control of the money you have no real insight into how much journals or books really costs to buy or license. Consequently you tend to demand far more than the meager budget you contribute can cover. The Library is forced to pool these multiple sources and then play the role of arbiter between waring departmental factions. Regardless of the outcome, all departments will blame the Library – not each other for the problems that occure
• You break (copyright) rules but hold the Library accountable for them – It is this last point that is the heart of the dysfunction. The Library by charter is responsible for maintaining the copyright of the data and they do so by a number of means, many of which prevent you from doing what ever you want. So naturally you circumvent those rules (or turn a blind eye when someone else does) yet when a publisher sues the University or the copyright law worsened because the rules was broken countlessly it is the Library manager responsible for the content it that is often the one to pay the price politically and professionally.
• You hate them too – Antiquated and protectionist Library practices are the rightfully the butt of many jokes. To be fair though no one likes to be derided, made fun of or criticized for enforcing policies they have no control over or journal prices they cannot influence. The vast majority of people you meet in the Library are just as frustrated as you are but the adversarial approach used against the average Librarian foot soldier conditions them to push back and say ssssssssh and No to every user because they have learned time and again that no good deed goes unpunished.

(Just replaced „IT“ with „Library“ and changed some wording)