The
curriculum for courses in librarianship and information science has been the
subject of countless analyses and debates by academics, almost all focused on the content
of courses and, when
they survey employers about the development of their courses, the teachers have
tended to maintain that focus on content.
Employers also tend to focus on subject knowledge, but usually complaining from
a rather self-interested perspective (and usually also forgetting that they are
the ones who have failed by not attracting or selecting staff with the specific
skill set that they require).
But what
do employers really value? For
many years, broadly based surveys of employers (across all industries) have
consistently tended to show that employers pay less attention to their
employees’ subject knowledge, and more attention to their:
·
communication
skills, including presenting a case, persuading, influencing;
·
task
management skills, including planning, organising, decision making, evaluation
·
creative
thinking and problem solving skills;
·
self-appraisal
skills; and their
ability to
·
combine
all these attributes in action-centred leadership skills.
Perhaps a
little more attention should be given to how LIS teaching helps to develop
these vital skills? Defining apropriate learning outcomes and devising relevant
means of assessment are ways of enhancing these capabilities in individuals (who,
of course, cannot be developed in such a way solely within the limited confines
of a Masters program).
Professor
Ian Johnson
Joint
Editor
Libri:
international journal of libraries and information services
The
Robert Gordon University
Aberdeen
From: Open
Lib/Info Sci Education Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sue
Myburgh
Sent: 09 January 2010 01:30
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 2010 Forum on Library Education
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
From: Open Lib/Info Sci
Education Forum [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Muriel Wells
[[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, 9 January 2010 11:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 2010 Forum on Library Education
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: 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
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