Dear all
I agree with Mr Sloan: this is a perennial topic of debate. And it is ultimately completely irrelevant. If there isn't a chasm between LIS education and practice, there jolly well should be. It is the task of educators
(and I refer here to academics or faculty whose goal is to 'educate' - please look up this word if you do not know what is means) to introduce neophyte information professionals to the DISCIPLINE of 'LIS' (or whatever else you want to call it. I believe the
split between 'Librarianship' and 'Information Science' constitutes another hoary debate, largely promulgated by our US cousins, and which should be knocked on the head or shot at dawn, whichever is quicker).
In such a program, the learners can learn the history and development of how information is created and communicated, and with what effect, which will take in the development of language as a representative system,
the development of writing, of printing and the consequent development of libraries. It will deal with the necessity of describing and physically (even if digital) organising documents or information artefacts; the principles of categorisation and classification.
It will examine how people look for information, and what they do on the rare occasions that they actually come to a 'library' to find it. It will furthermore consider the processes and purposes of reading. It will be based on the premise that information
is alchemic, and transformative, and this provides our professional raison d'etre - that being able to understand information and make use of it might help people live their lives on this earth.
The details of HOW these places of physical storage and access work, what should be stocked in them, who should be allowed to access them, and when, what should be avoided or discarded, what the visitors to such information
stores should know and what we should know to help them, how to look after the information artefacts and describe them and store them for specific purposes: ALL OF THESE TECHNIQUES should be taught by the employer concerned. There are too many tasks in every
library for ANY LIS program to make even the slightest attempt to train their learners in them - and this is NOT important either, as these techniques change not only from institution to instutituion, but over time as well.
Employers should get over this - unless they want clerks and administrators, and not professionals who serve a social purpose and assume (quite serious) social responsibilties (which can even involve life and death).
It is quite ridiculous for university-based educational programs to attempt to focus on work-related 'competencies', which they cannot do very well anyway without being in a real-life setting. This is something that employers must assume - as all for-profit
businesses assume as well (just look at how new accountants, doctors, lawyers, architects, nurses and so forth are treated and trained in the first year or two on the job, after university.
But this brings me to a wider discussion about how universities should stop thinking they are money-making training enterprises, and should rather be phrontisteries that encourage creativity and innovation in society.
So I'll stop here.
Love to all for a Happy New Year from a VERY HOT (43 celsius - over 100 fahrenheit?) Adelaide.
Susan
Dr S Myburgh
School of Communication, Languages and International Studies
University of South Australia
Adelaide
Won't our work address the issue Mr. SLoan is talking about here?
From: B.G. Sloan <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Fri, January 8, 2010 3:10:37 PM
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.
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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