Meredith FarkasDec 14, 2022
I wrote a blog post about how our profession's (and society's) overvaluing of innovation denigrates the critical work of maintenance. "Valuing maintenance" https://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2022/12/14/valuing-maintenance/ I spent a lot of my career thinking that innovation was the work I should aim for and maintenance was just drudgery. We're socialized to see it that way and it's not only offensive to those in roles focused primarily on maintenance, but dead wrong about which is more important.
Valuing maintenance | Information Wants To Be Free

Website of librarian, writer, speaker, consultant and LIS educator, Meredith Gorran Farkas. Includes the popular Information Wants to be Free blog.

Show threadJessica 🦕 Dec 15, 2022

@librarianmer
This is something I've thought a lot about but not in a meaningful, put-together way like this. I often feel like I'm fighting a tide when someone on our team says, "Let's make a bunch of tutorials! That's what we are missing!" and I ask about all the time an energy that goes into planning them, creating them, and updating them. I hadn't thought of updating as maintenance exactly, but yes.

There are too many quick-makes out there that haven't been touched in years.

Show threadJessica 🦕 Dec 15, 2022

@librarianmer
If we make 15 things and don't go back to them, but we then make 15 more? We are creating a backlog of work that no one sees as work. It's not valued to revisit what you've done and to assess it with a critical eye after the initial "it worked!" period. It worked then, but is it working now? If not, how do we keep it working? Is it worth it?

I need to re-read your post, because it's really speaking to me.

Show threadMeredith FarkasDec 16, 2022
@MLISrevenge YES! This is why with tutorial development, I'm big on thoughtful, collaborative, processes that take into account the maintenance burden of each. We have not abandoned a single tutorial we've created at PCC using a really deliberate process (and many of them were created in 2015-16); some have been updated, but they are still used in teaching b/c we were really careful in making them.
Show threadJessica 🦕 
@librarianmer
That sounds amazing and I'd love to see the process work in this way. Unfortunately, most are quickly made and forgotten. I have to think more about the process of making the tutorial have a greater sense of longevity.
Dec 17, 2022 at 2:01amWeb
Show threadMeredith FarkasDec 17, 2022
@MLISrevenge believe me, it took a lot of trial and error to get to this place. I've been making video tutorials for 18 years and the first few years was mistake after mistake after mistake.