Thanks, Bernie, for pointing us to a provocative essay.

Mr. Bell is unfortunately making a sweeping, untested assumption that the principles he espouses are not at work in LIS education.  His proposed example in which students are taught "to first think about the user and what he or she is trying to accomplish and the factors driving them to ask the question" rather than teaching them "to ask reference interview questions aimed at narrowing the possibilities so that the librarian can impose a solution on the user" is going to sound amazingly familiar to any competent faculty member engaged in teaching reference and information services in an LIS program.

The essay also leads one to wonder if it is important to a design thinking approach to correctly name fundamental concepts: there is no ALA sanctioned process known as "re-accreditation."

Danny


On 4/6/10 3:47 PM, "B.G. Sloan" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


I recently read an interesting blog posting by Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian for Research & Instructional Services at Temple University's Paley Library. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Drexel University College of Information Science & Technology.

http://dbl.lishost.org/blog/2010/03/31/how-design-thinking-could-improve-lis-education/

The author recently attended the 15th anniversary celebration for the Internet Public Library, as well as a meeting of the re-accreditation advisory board for Drexel University's LIS school (the author is a member of that advisory board). His blog posting is an outgrowth of discussions he had while attending these meetings.

An excerpt:

"LIS students...need to gain proficiency with important skills, such as the organization of material, reference work, subject specialization and digital development. No one argues that. But where the need seems more acute, and where there is less certainty about how to teach, is with the less tangible skills sets such as listening and observing, problem analysis or critical thinking. That's where much of the conversation focused; what could practitioners share to help educators design a better curriculum for LIS students. That's when it occurred to me. We should be talking about integrating design thinking into the LIS curriculum...I believe that the first LIS program that declares itself the 'design thinking iSchool' is going to set the standard for the future of library education. Is there a forward thinking LIS program that is ready to give this a try?"

Bernie Sloan