Overcoming Techphobia

Posted October 24, 2022 by Claire Pask

As an American born in the late ‘90s—not a millennial nor a Gen Xer—I guess I’m something of a “digital native.” Sure, I’m comfortable with most social media platforms and can figure out how to navigate any webpage or app with relative ease, but I’ve always been incredibly daunted by anything I saw as beyond the scope of my self-imposed tech barrier. I mean, I studied English literature as an undergraduate student, and my vision of my life as a librarian usually involves my future self in a hand-knitted wool cardigan surrounded by various dusty books and manuscripts—not sitting in an office writing code or thinking of the best ways to integrate new technology into my work. Any skill on the “techie” side of things—like the back end of that website I’m happy to transfer my data onto—seemed beyond my reach, out of my comfort zone. That idea is changing, and my LIS coursework is forcing me to reconsider my vision.

Just this past week, I wrote an image into an HTML code and formatted it to resize based on screen width using CSS. (Yes, it was an image of a young Alex Trebek, and yes, the webpage bore a striking resemblance to the 1996 Space Jam website.) I added JavaScript to my professional website for LIS-488 and worked with a 3D printer in the Simmons Makerspace. For the more tech-savvy folks reading this post, those accomplishments may seem like small potatoes. My fellow cardigan-wearing manuscript catalogers, however, will know just how intimidating that mess of HTML can look, and how much internalized fear of anything too “tech heavy” I had to overcome.

I can untangle that CSS. I can edit an XML catalog entry, and I’m going to have to get over my preconceived notions of who can code, of who can do get down into the nitty gritty of software and hardware and computer programs. Those assignments I mentioned earlier were much easier than I thought—the hardest part was overcoming my own insecurities.