The promise of an uncertain future… Gill Hallam QUT

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a university for the real world

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• • • • • What skills and attributes will LIS professionals need?

What expectations will employers have?

What are the challenges for LIS educators?

What about the professional association?

Who is responsible for what? 2

a university for the real world

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your

future… • Where do you fit?

• What do you want to achieve?

• How will you reach your goals?

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The university of learning

• • • How can we help students develop the capacity to handle situations in the future that they have not previously encountered?

How can we help students learn to deal with the uncertainty of future events?

How do we design appropriate learning and assessment activities?

(Bowden & Marton, 1998) 4

“The new skills”

• • Plenty of literature Key studies: 1.

KALIPER (1998-2000) 2.

SKIP (2000) 3.

SLA (1997, 2003) 4.

CILIP (2003)

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1. KALIPER – Kellogg ALISE Information Professions and Education Reform project

• • •

Trend 1

In addition to libraries as institutions and library-specific operations, LIS curricula are addressing broad-based information environments and information problems

Trend 2

While LIS curricula continue to incorporate perspectives from other disciplines, a distinct core has taken shape that is predominantly user-centered

Other trends:

– – IT to support curriculum Experimentation with specialisations – – Flexible delivery Diverse levels of degrees (Bachelor, Masters, PhD) 6

Trend 1 – broader information contexts

• • • • The inherent

transferability of library skills to other situations and information problems

was evident in the creation and redesign of curricula so that the concepts and skills covered have broad implications and relevance.

Introduction of

new topics

to focus on information problems such as licensing and legal issues, ethics, the creation and marketing of information products, the organization and management of digital information.

Renaming or retooling

of traditional LIS units such as cataloguing, classification and reference, or redesignating them as electives instead of core.

Dropping the L-word and

introducing the I-word

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Trend 2 – a distinct core with different dressings

• • • Infusion of

multidisciplinary perspectives

into LIS curricula, eg from computer science, medicine, engineering, psychology, art and design, business.

Yet the development of a distinct core: the central domain covers cognitive and social aspects of

how information and information systems are created, organized, managed, disseminated, filtered, routed, retrieved, accessed, used, and evaluated

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At the heart of the activities, issues and problems is

the user.

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2. SKIP Skills for the new Information Professionals

• • • Management must recognise the

changing nature of the role

of the majority of professional librarians within LIS. Their changed functions will require

new skills and training, and continual updating

. 3 areas highlighted for attention – information and IT skills required to function in the

networked information environment

; – an understanding of the nature of change taking place in the

teaching and learning process

education; in higher –

team working and team management skills

particularly within the context of multidisciplinary team working.

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3. SLA Competencies

• • • 4 major professional competencies: – Managing information organisations – Managing information resources – – Managing information services Managing information tools and technologies Each competency – specific skills (illustrated by scenarios) Personal competencies included: – Oral and written communication – – – Teamwork Problem solving Adaptablilty 10

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2002 - merger of Library Association & Institute of Information Scientists Framework of qualifications to update the body of knowledge inherited from the 2 organisations Chartered status of LIS professionals in the UK

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QUT

• • • • • Research into the discipline knowledge and generic capabilities required by the LIS professional in the 21 st century Literature review, environmental scan, focus groups and surveys 15 key areas of discipline knowledge 10 generic capabilities Development of a new course Master of Information Management plus a series of Graduate Certificates

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Fields of discipline knowledge

Information and society Ethics and legal responsibility Management Information organisation Information services Collection management & development Information resources & retrieval Information literacy instruction Information management Information systems for LIS professionals Web content management Career planning Records management & archives Professional practice Research

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Generic capabilities

Information literacy Lifelong learning Teamwork Communication Ethics and social responsibility Project management Critical thinking Problem solving Business acumen Self management

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So what are the skills that LIS professionals will require – on entry into the profession and as they progress through their careers?

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Lots of lists…

• • • • SLA Competencies Cathie Koina (ALJ, 2002) TFPL KM skills map TFPL Knowledge and Information Skills Toolkit 16

What do employers want?

• • • • • • • • • Working within projects or initiatives Creativity/imagination Understanding the organisation and the role within organisation Impact analysis Risk taking Lateral thinking Scenario planning Evidence based practice Policy responses •

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And professional bodies?

CILIP: Criteria for chartership ALIA: Core knowledge skills and attributes

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How can we draw all the players together to provide cohesion?

Educators… Employers… ALIA… You…

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• LIS educators can kick start the process • And they need to work closely with employers • And qualified LIS professionals need to commit to professional development • And employers need to commit to their staff members’ professional development • And ALIA can provide the framework • but

You

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YOU LIS educators CPD employers training providers ALIA

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So, sure, there’s uncertainty, It’s all around us, It’s part of life.

But it’s YOUR future, You can make it happen… You will make it happen…

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Promise?

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Bibliography

Bowden, J. & Marton, F. (1998).

The university of learning

. London: Kogan Page.

Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) (n.d.),

Chartered membership

. http://www.cilip.org.au/qualifications/chartering at 25 April 2004. Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) (2004),

CILIP Framework of Qualifications.

http://www.cilip.org.uk/qualifications/framework/consultation_intro.html

at 25 April 2004.

Fisher, B. (2003). Skills for the 21st century. The challenges for our professional practice.

Impact Education for Library and Information Science, 42

, p.170. , 6(1) http://www.careerdevelopmentgroup.org.uk/impact/winter03/21censki.htm

at 25 April 2004. Pettigrew, K.E. & Durrance, J.C. (2001). KALIPER: Introduction and overview of results. 42

Journal of

Garrod, P. & Sidgreaves, I. (1998),

Skills for the new Information Professional: final report

. http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/papers/other/skip/ at 25 April 2004.

Koina, C. (2002). Librarians are the ultimate knowledge managers?

ALJ, 52

(3). http://alia.org.au/publishing/alj/52.3/full.text/koina.html

st 30 November 2004 Partridge, H. & Hallam, G. (2004). The double helix: a personal account of the discovery of [the information professionals’] DNA. ALIA 2004 http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2004/pdfs/partridge.h.paper.pdf

at 30 November 2004. Skills for the new Information Professional (SKIP) (n.d.).

Home page.

http://www.plym.ac.uk/faculties/research/skip1.html

at 25 April 2004.

Special Libraries Association (SLA) (1997).

Competencies of the special librarian of the 21st century

http://www.sla.org/content/learn/comp2003/97comp.cfm

at 25 April 2004. Special Libraries Association (SLA)(2003),

Competencies of the information professional of the 21st century

. http://www.sla.org/content/learn/comp2003/index.cfm

at 25 April 2004. . Sutton, S.A. (2000). Trends, trend projections, and crystal ball gazing.

Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 42,

p.241. 25

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