Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Middle Management Survey
Hey -- do Laura Savastinuk a favor and fill out her survey for middle managers in libraries.
(Laura is, of course, the fabulous coauthor of Library 2.0 -- help her make her new book just as good!)
(Laura is, of course, the fabulous coauthor of Library 2.0 -- help her make her new book just as good!)
Labels: library20, middlemanagers, savastinuk
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
We Don't Need No
Library Journal has a short news story up about "Burger to Appoint LIS Task Force" -- yes, we're back to discussing the state of library education, with the interesting note that, at the ALISE Forum on Professional Education at Midwinter: "With some 80 percent of those present educators and 20 percent practitioners, there were too few students or new librarians to offer their immediate perspective—a limitation that has also been the case in previous forums." Meanwhile, Michael Stephens points to a blog from San Jose State University, slis21 (SLIS Associate Director: Discussions on a Curriculum for a 21st Century Library School). A post on "skills for the 21st century librarian" is garnering some particularly interesting comments, both in- and outside the SJSU community.
Our ongoing discussions about the state of library education and accreditation are a further testament to the "fuzziness" of our field. While many agree that changes need to be made, there are real fundamental disagreements on the types and scope of changes that are necessary. Those envisioned by Michael Gorman, for instance, may not resemble those desired by Meredith Farkas.
The LJ squib points out that the discussions on accreditation beg the question of "whether the profession retains sufficient commonality" around which to build a core curriculum. This is a larger question worth pulling out for examination. My gut feeling is yes, but I think we need to build that core with an understanding of the very different environments in which people will work post-graduation, and an agreement of what we need to know to both build the foundations of that work and understand the importance (and basic idea of) our colleagues' work -- of librarianship in all its variations.
I'm also interested in hearing what the rest of you feel is core to a 21st century library education. Can we update our curricula to build a common -- and relevant -- center?
Our ongoing discussions about the state of library education and accreditation are a further testament to the "fuzziness" of our field. While many agree that changes need to be made, there are real fundamental disagreements on the types and scope of changes that are necessary. Those envisioned by Michael Gorman, for instance, may not resemble those desired by Meredith Farkas.
The LJ squib points out that the discussions on accreditation beg the question of "whether the profession retains sufficient commonality" around which to build a core curriculum. This is a larger question worth pulling out for examination. My gut feeling is yes, but I think we need to build that core with an understanding of the very different environments in which people will work post-graduation, and an agreement of what we need to know to both build the foundations of that work and understand the importance (and basic idea of) our colleagues' work -- of librarianship in all its variations.
I'm also interested in hearing what the rest of you feel is core to a 21st century library education. Can we update our curricula to build a common -- and relevant -- center?
Labels: education, l2, library 2.0, library20, libraryschool, lis
Fuzzy Wuzzy Was
Meredith Farkas posted a link to the Library 2.0 Meme Map on Web4Lib that got me thinking about the subject again. Specifically, that I've seen a lot of objections to the "fuzziness" of Library 2.0 as a term, but we seem perfectly willing to accept similar fuzziness in other aspects of our profession.
Take the word "librarian" itself. We hold onto that self-definition, regardless of whether our work includes telling stories, overseeing large-scale digitization projects, answering reference questions, or managing repository projects. My most recent career as a reference librarian at a public library, for instance, doesn't necessarily help me wrap my head around the day-to-day work of colleagues engaged in projects we didn't even have names for when I went to library school.
So, if we're willing to expand our professional horizons and definitions to encompass people doing such different, yet somehow related, work, why can't we similarly accept the varied foci of people exploring the different, yet somehow related aspects of Library 2.0? Is it simply because it's new?
And yes, some will define "librarian" as simply someone who holds an MLS, but I think this is an oversimplification, given both the diversity of fields in which we work and the number of people who do the work and call themselves/have the title of librarian, without having earned the degree. Not to mention the fact that we lack standardization in library education and schools, so we come out with the same degree, having learned very different things.
Take the word "librarian" itself. We hold onto that self-definition, regardless of whether our work includes telling stories, overseeing large-scale digitization projects, answering reference questions, or managing repository projects. My most recent career as a reference librarian at a public library, for instance, doesn't necessarily help me wrap my head around the day-to-day work of colleagues engaged in projects we didn't even have names for when I went to library school.
So, if we're willing to expand our professional horizons and definitions to encompass people doing such different, yet somehow related, work, why can't we similarly accept the varied foci of people exploring the different, yet somehow related aspects of Library 2.0? Is it simply because it's new?
And yes, some will define "librarian" as simply someone who holds an MLS, but I think this is an oversimplification, given both the diversity of fields in which we work and the number of people who do the work and call themselves/have the title of librarian, without having earned the degree. Not to mention the fact that we lack standardization in library education and schools, so we come out with the same degree, having learned very different things.
Labels: l2, library 2.0, library20
