The care and feeding of speakers and the spoken-to: a view from the back row

摘要

The clock moves to 9 a.m. From the front of the room, someone taps on the microphone to be sure that it's on. I take my coffee to the seat I staked out earlier. The speaker, a nationally known expert, turns on the overhead projector. My anticipation fades as I look at the screen, filled with every statistic that a librarian could possibly need or want in a professional lifetime. There in its unreadable splendor is the infamous typed transparency. Another professional meeting has begun. I recently attended a conference where out of eight presenters, only one speaker actually made a good presentation: The equipment worked and the slides were attractive, well thought out, and, most important of all, readable. The good speaker was organized; I could form a mental outline of his main points and fit his information into this structure. His wonderfully readable visual aids helped me follow his important points. Simple logic dictates that "if they can't see it, and if they can't hear it and follow it, they won't understand it." A librarian preparing to give a presentation should pay attention to these simple truths. Actors understand that communication is the goal of every performance. Experienced public speakers have been drilled, "Tell them what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you told them." It is perhaps significant that the past three years of Library Literature turned up only a handful of articles on the subject of public speaking, and those were in journals such as Searcher, Emedia, and Computer Librarian. After having attended enough professional meetings to qualify as an expert audience member, I would like to offer four simple rules that will make my job of listener immeasurably more pleasant. Rule 1.