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Two or three observations I just couldn't help sharing, after reading B.G. Sloan's Jesse post on "How Design Thinking Could Improve LIS Education", and following the links it contained. (Thanks BGS). The first stems from Steven Bell's column, which begins, "As a library practitioner it’s rare to have occasions to speak with LIS faculty about the education of our future library colleagues." What a lamentable situation. Why is that? Can you imagine a faculty of medicine whose surgeons never did any cutting? Now to Design Thinking. "Design thinking is, like, my religion", says David Kelley in the video Bell points us to. The term "religion" comes from a Latin verb "religare", meaning, ‘to bind.’ Then, Bell links us to an article about Roger L. Martin's new book. In a passage about McDonald's, Martin says, "Ray Kroc imagined the scene repeated from coast to coast—and around the world. He relentlessly stripped away uncertainty, ambiguity, and judgment from the processes that emerged from the McDonald brothers' original insight." Does LIS really want to become "fast-food" thinking? Graduate schools in general, and iSchools especially, need to produce cordon bleu cuisine. Shouldn't LIS education be fostering professional 'judgement', not stripping it away? In one of the early Information Theory formulations, the term "information" can mean "the range of freedom in selecting meanings". Once you're locked-in, on this view, you have nothing new to add. The process of idea-generation must be ongoing. References from B.G.Sloan's post: Bell: http://dbl.lishost.org/blog/2010/03/31/how-design-thinking-could-improve-lis-education/ Kelley: http://feedroom.businessweek.com/?fr_story=3def41e1b7396a87d623c3f13762217960729575&chan=innovation_special+report+--+design+thinking_special+report+--+design+thinking Martin: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/oct2009/id20091014_072850.htm --- Christopher Brown-Syed PhD [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] Skype: cbrownsyed Editor, Library and Archival Security http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/01960075.asp "If you are made a leader, do not magnify yourself, but among your men, be as one of them.'" -- Edmund, King of the East Angles (840-870).