Eggplant 2.0

Well, it's mid-February, time to finally get some of those New Year's resolutions underway. So for dinner my partner and I assembled a batch of Weight Watchers^® eggplant parmesan. The good news about this recipe is that using less oil to cook eggplant means less fat. The bad news is... er ... have you ever tasted undercooked eggplant?

Back into the oven with the casserole for 45 additional minutes, and voilá—a new and improved (and palatable) dinner.

So what do eggplants have in common with my library associate training (apart from their uncanny resemblance to Richard Nixon, that is)?

Sometimes the basics are not enough. You need to jazz things up a bit. Cook the eggplant a little longer, so it reaches a value-added state. Here are a few more examples:

But does the same hold true for the Web? Or has our love affair with technology all gotten to be a bit too much? It's one thing to move libraries into the 21st century for quicker and more equitable knowledge retrieval, but is online always better?

I'm still pondering questions like that one. For instance, if your library has a Facebook page, is that a newly-essential conduit of information to the public, or is it window-dressing—or worse—pandering? What goals does it aim to achieve, and how do we measure progress toward those goals?

These, and other philosophical questions will dog me through the spring, I'm sure. As will another long-burning question: Barney—dinosaur? Or eggplant?