Once again Bill is incredibly eloquent and astute. This "debate" has long ago become tiresome. What is trivial is trivial, as Charley pointed out. What fosters the most effective practice of librarianship can be discussed. And it has. And there is a set of Core Competences that ALA Council has approved. Conversation about the integration of the Competences and value of them for the communities of libraries could be valuable. Can we please the word "chasm" behind, though?
John M. Budd
Professor
School of Information Science & Learning Techologies
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211
Phone: 573.639.3258
Fax: 573.884.4944
________________________________
From: Crowley, Bill <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, January 09, 2010 6:33 PM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: 2010 Forum on Library Education
Greetings All and Bernie in Particular:
My “information” friends—and I DO have information friends—often respond to the “Is there a chasm between LIS education and professional practice?” question with a variant of the “No, it’s all information science. End of discussion” argument. This is only to be expected since there are certain questions whose answers cannot be ascertained through quantitative surveys. If you want a simple answer I would suggest determining whether or not “library” and “information” practitioners and those “academic practitioners” who often teach in and administer —without library experience—LIS programs share the same professional cultures. The short answer is many do not. Culture and co-cultures, the foundations of both science and practice, can be learned from e-books but are really learned through living it. I go into this issue more in both Spanning the Theory-practice Divide in Library and Information Science (2005) and Renewing Professional Librarianship(2008).
If you want to go the longer route of “scientifically” determining the existence of a chasm—or lack of one—here is what you do. You get millions and millions of dollars to hire a lot of cultural anthropologists, many “Chicago School” sociologists (if you can find them), and a lot of folklore scholars. They you have them read a lot of issues of Library Journal, School Library Journal, VOOYA, American Libraries, and the equivalent information and knowledge management practitioner journals. Then you send them to every LIS school, give them every course syllabi, and let them “sit in” on weeks of F2F and online LIS classes to determine if the syllabus and classroom activities match the instruction needed and required professional learning. Then you send them out to do more such participant –observation and numerous interviews with managers and new librarians to determine if the LIS educational mix actually matches library-information-knowledge realities. (BTW, I did a thesis on the professional folklore of night-school education for a master’s degree at Ohio State University in the 1990s and can testify that is involved here is a LOT of time on subject. )
You could do all of the above and then find out that the intellectual lenses used by some of those who actually read the study will not allow them to accept the reality of the results. For the reasons why this is so, you might want to revisit Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions or the old legal truism of determining who benefits from asserting that a particular belief is true. (Jobs anyone?)
In short, a lot of work can be done with conclusions accepted or rejected on the basis of what benefits the reader the most. It can be irritating but it is very human.
Best wishes,
Bill
Bill Crowley, Ph.D.
Professor
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
Dominican University
7900 West Division Street
River Forest, IL 60305
708.524.6513 v
708.524.6657 f
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
www.gslis.dom.edu<http://www.gslis.dom.edu>
From: Open Lib/Info Sci Education Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of B.G. Sloan
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2010 3:11 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 2010 Forum on Library Education
This announcement asks: "Is there a chasm between LIS education and professional practice?"
As Yogi Berra once said, "It's like deja-vu, all over again." Isn't this question asked just about every year? And don't we wind up with one group saying "Yes, there is a chasm", and another group saying "No, there isn't a chasm"? Then there's some heated debate, and maybe a report. Then people get tired of talking about the question and it gets put on a back burner until the next round.
It sure would be nice to put this question to rest once and for all by actually answering it. I remember John Unsworth's suggestion last summer in the iSchool/iCaucus response to the ALA Library Education Task Force report:
"As deans of the iSchools, we suggest that the most efficient means of achieving the outcomes that you desire would be to conduct empirical research leading to a genuine understanding of the needs of the profession and to consider how those needs are, or are not, being met by programs such as ours. We envision this work being conducted in an atmosphere of mutual respect between those who teach and those who practice, and would willingly engage the expertise and resources of the iSchools in the achievement of such an outcome."
To the best of my knowedge, no one (on either "side") ever took John up on his suggestion.
I, for one, am really tired of the "chasm" debate. It always seems to end with both sides each convincing themselves that their position is correct.
Bernie Sloan
--- On Thu, 1/7/10, Patricia Antrim <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Patricia Antrim <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: 2010 Forum on Library Education
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Thursday, January 7, 2010, 2:55 PM
The following announcement is sent on behalf of the ALA Committee on Education.
2010 Forum on Library Education
The American Library Association (ALA) Committee on Education and the
Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) will
present a forum on Library Education. The forum will be hosted by ALISE
and held during the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Boston, (MA) at the Boston
Park Plaza Hotel & Towers, 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 15,
2010.
This year's theme will be: "Learning Outcomes: Methodologies for
Connecting Communities"
Representatives from Library & Information Studies (LIS) education and
ALA divisions will discuss the following issues of learning outcomes in
LIS education and how the professional community views LIS graduates:
What is a Learning Outcome? How might the new competences impact LIS
education? What relationship do the new competences have to established
division competences? Is there a chasm between LIS education and
professional practice?
The forums on library education are annual events and are venues for an
open exchange of ideas and ongoing dialogue between LIS educators and
library practitioners on current topics related to library education
matters.
Speakers: Rachel A. Applegate, Indiana University - Indianapolis; Lynn
S. Connaway, OCLC; Sara Kelly Johns, Lake Placid Middle/High School
(NY); Dan O'Connor, Rutgers University and Scott Walter, University of
Illinois - Urbana.
For updates and additional information about the Forum, please visit the
website:
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/hrdr/abouthrdr/hrdrliaisoncomm/c
ommitteeoned/libraryeducationforum.cfm
Lorelle Swader
**Please include the history of email correspondence in your reply**
Dr. Patricia Antrim
Chair, Educational Leadership & Human Development
Lovinger 4102
University of Central Missouri
Warrensburg, MO 64093
Phone: 660-543-8633
Fax: 660-543-4164
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