The complex futures of emerging technologies: Challenges and opportunities for science foresight and governance in Australia

As the river of technological change flows faster and faster, it is imperative that library staff keep learning to provide the best service for their users. Yet many of us feel more like we are drowning than riding the river of new technology. Is it management’s role to provide development or do we need to take charge of our own learning experiences? Being able to recognize, record and reflect on our playing, experimenting and learning may be the answer. Self directed learning is about developing your own goals, choosing how you are going to learn, putting a time frame around your goals and evaluating your own learning. To do this we need to change the way we view our own learning experiences and praxis. Through the development of skills in self-directed learning, library staff will not only be able to embed ongoing learning into their own practice, but also through reflection and sharing develop the learning culture around them. This paper presents the background to the author’s doctoral research to address a gap in current knowledge investigating how academic library staff can incorporate learning about emerging technologies into their every day work practices. Using an action research method and a framework of self-directed learning, this research may provide a cost effective and sustainable way for library staff across all sectors to learn about emerging technologies and to ride the rapids of technological change with skill and grace.