Coping with Continual Change: Change Management in SLIS: Proceedings of the European Association for Library and Information Education and Research (EUCLID) and the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Joint Conference, Potsdam, Germany, 31 July‐1 August 2003

Citation

Bakewell, K.G.B. (2006), "Coping with Continual Change: Change Management in SLIS: Proceedings of the European Association for Library and Information Education and Research (EUCLID) and the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Joint Conference, Potsdam, Germany, 31 July‐1 August 2003", New Library World, Vol. 107 No. 11/12, pp. 557-561. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074800610713361

This volume contains the proceedings of the European Association for Library and Information Education and Research (EUCLID) and the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Joint Conference, Potsdam, Germany, 31 July‐1 August 2003. Most of the 21 papers were originally published in New Library World. The gap between the conference and the publication of the proceedings presents something of a problem. For example, Alan Brine and John Feather state in their paper on building a skills portfolio for the information professional that further evaluation is planned in 2003/2004.

The proceedings begin with Michael Gorman's keynote address on “Whither library education?”, given in his usual lucid and trenchant style. He is a traditional librarian and would like nationally agreed curricula in library schools with much more attention being paid to traditional library topics rather than subjects like information visualisation, business taxonomies and computational linguistics. His core curriculum includes collection development and acquisitions; cataloguing; reference and library instruction; circulation, maintenance, preservation, etc; systems; management; and types of library. He would like to see twenty‐first Century library schools concentrate on teaching and research in librarianship and co‐operate with library practitioners in all kinds of library. He rightly points out that education is the job of the library schools and training is the responsibility of the employing institution.

In contrast, Liz Blankson‐Hemans' and Betty Jo Hibberd's surveys of library practitioners in the commercial sector found that traditional LIS skills such as cataloguing and indexing were regarded as “nice to have” rather than “essential”. More important were a more business focused attitude, flexibility and a proactive willingness to change.

In “Curricular changes and core skills for information professionals?” Joze Urbanija and Primoz Juznic suggest that, in order to give students the best possible training for their future employment and careers, there is need for study of information management, information resources, information access, information systems and technology and research. They call for more research into professional ethics. A survey of 80 students at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, showed general satisfaction with the curriculum but a need was expressed for a more positive attitude towards the LIS profession and the addition of sociology, pedagogy and communication skills to the curriculum. Communication skills are, of course, vital for the LIS profession (just as, in spite of the findings of Blankson‐Hemans' and Hibberd's survey, cataloguing and indexing are essential aids to information access).

Robert Vaagan and Sigrid Holm consider the views of 372 respondents to a survey of professional values in Norwegian librarianship. A total of 15 professional values were identified. The respondents from public libraries placed “free access to materials and information” an easy first, followed by “creation of culture of reading”, “spreading knowledge and literacy” and “professional neutrality and objectivity”. College and university librarians placed “spreading information literacy” first, closely followed by “free access to materials and information”. Respondents from public special libraries (including the national library) gave first preferences to “free access to materials and information” and “providing services to users”, followed by “spreading knowledge and literacy”. The smallest number of respondents came from school libraries and private special libraries. School librarians gave first preferences, in equal numbers, to “free access to materials and information” and “spreading information literacy”, while special librarians placed “spreading knowledge and literacy” first, followed by “free access to materials and information”.

Alan Brine and John Feather examine the relationship between gaining knowledge and understanding and acquiring professional skills by LIS students before and immediately after they enter practice, using a portfolio of skills descriptors developed by the learning and support network for information and computer sciences in conjunction with the Chartered Institute of Library and Professionals and LIS departments in the UK. As is stated at the beginning of this review, their paper concludes with a statement that further evaluation is planned for 2003/2004 and it would be interesting to know whether this evaluation took place and with what results.

Aleksandra Horvat highlights the need for librarians to continue their professional education after completing their initial studies and describes the work of the Croatian Training Centre for Continuing Education for Librarians, which was created in 2002. A legal obligation for librarians to attend the Centre is called for, so that employers would have to give them leave of absence to attend, and more incentives are suggested for staff in relation to promotion and other benefits.

The paper by Sirje Virkus and Lawraine Wood is entitled “Change and innovation in European LIS education”, but the case studies only cover England (Manchester Metropolitan University), Scotland (Robert Gordon University) and Estonia (Tallinn Pedagogical University). Challenges identified include globalisation, competition, the need to provide good quality teaching and research and the need to modernise structure and departmental organisation. The three institutions studied have all faced up to these challenges but the authors admit that the three case studies may not be representative.

Mary M. Wagner examines four categories of scholarship defined by E. Boyer – discovery, integration, application and teaching – and applies them to community‐based learning in LIS schools – providing information to serve the needs of community groups. She describes the use of community‐based learning at the College of St Catherine, St Paul, Minnesota, which has drawn together a number of centres for academic work.

The impact of research on professional practice and policy making is the theme of the paper by Ian M. Johnson, Dorothy A. Williams, Caroline Wavell and Graeme Baxter. They argue that some practitioners are reluctant to accept and make use of research results and rightly ask, if this is the case, how can we expect policy makers outside (or “outwith”, as they prefer) the profession to pay any attention to them? The test for schools of librarianship and information science is, they suggest, whether they can stimulate in another generation an enthusiasm for meeting the “new conceptual challenge” of impact measurement and whether they have the skills and commitment to undertake the range of teaching and research that is required – alone or with partners from other disciplines – to develop the awareness and skills that are required to investigate impact and to use the outcomes to influence policy making.

Betty J. Turrock describes the development of a diverse professional workforce and diverse professional leaders from the perspective of feminism, minority groups and interdependence between educators and practitioners. She suggest that educators and practitioners should be designing and executing programmes which address the recruitment of emerging majorities and developing more diverse leaders for the profession.

Bill Johnston and Sheila Webber consider the part which a Library and Information Science faculty can play in the development of an information‐literate university. Information literacy is defined as “the adoption of appropriate information behaviour to identify, through whatever channel or medium, information well fitted to information needs, leading to wise and ethical use of information in society” and an information literate university as one in which all members – administrators, academics, researchers and students – are information literate.

Ismail Abdullahi and Leif Kajberg report the results of a questionnaire survey of the inclusion of international issues in 60 LIS programmes in the USA, Canada and Europe. Most of the programmes studied include international issues, but the authors suggest that international LIS education should be recognised as an essential element of the curriculum, that standards should be developed to guide LIS schools in the inclusion of international issues and that there should be more formal co‐operative programmes such as faculty and student exchanges and joint research. A total of 20 of the 30 European schools studied have exchange programmes with LIS schools in other countries.

Linda Ashcroft and Chris Watts describe a research project being undertaken at Liverpool John Moores University which is investigating the provision of e‐books – i.e. books made available in electronic format – in 127 academic libraries in the UK and the implication of such provision for library schools. Electronic information delivery is a constantly changing arena, requiring a changing learning environment, and this means that there are implications for the skills that need to be taught to LIS students.

Vicky L. Gregory considers student perceptions of web‐based distance education, which she states is rapidly vying to become one of the preferred norms, if not the predominant form, for teaching in many LIS programmes in the USA. The use of technology for distance learning in the UK is considered by Robert Newton. Barriers to such use were examined via a questionnaire survey of academics working within computing and information studies departments. A total of 220 questionnaires were despatched to workers in computing departments and 80 to workers in information studies departments, but only 134 completed questionnaires were returned and only 12 of these came from information studies departments. Interviews were also held with 16 respondents but the author does not state whether these were from computing or information studies departments. The paper concludes with the fairly obvious comment that, if academic institutions wish to develop web‐based distance learning initiatives, they must be receptive to putting in place effective strategies to support this.

The important problem of translating LIS research into classroom activity is considered by James M. Turner. His solution is just‐in‐time delivery – instead of having all classes prepared and ready for delivery before the start of a semester, preparing individual classes much more closely to the delivery date. Things change so rapidly in information science that if courses are prepared too far in advance they will have to be revised before delivery anyway. Two case studies are provided at the University of Montreal – an undergraduate certificate in managing digital information and a graduate course in multimedia information systems.

Martina Dragija‐Ivanovic, Sanjica Faletar, Franjo Pehar and Tatjana Aparac‐Jelusic examine the extent to which the needs of the archives, libraries and museums community are covered by 60 graduate LIS schools in the USA and 58 in Europe. They point out that archives, libraries and museums share a common need for standardisation of procedures, design of user services, safekeeping of all types of materials and information, presentation of their collection and information for public use and evaluation of their services in relation to the needs of users and the community in general. Although this is described as a “preliminary research report”, there is no indication of further work being planned.

Two of the contributions are concerned with the situation in Poland. Bronislawa Wozniczka‐Paruzel states that developments in information technology are just one factor affecting change in that country. Others include political change, which brought about a growth in the autonomy of higher education institutions and thus influenced the diversity of LIS studies programmes in different institutions, and greater co‐operation between higher education institutions. Katarzyna Zurawska examines reasons for the increase in the number of LIS students at Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, their motivation and expectations. Interviews with students showed that reasons for choosing LIS studies included an interesting curriculum and working with computers. A small number of first year students (7 per cent) began their LIS education by chance: they were accepted by the LIS recruitment board, having failed the recruitment process for other studies which were more attractive to them.

Iveta Gudakovska and Baiba Holma examine the current situation in Latvia with regard to LIS education and the criteria used for developing new study programmes. They stress the need to recruit knowledgeable and experienced academic staff and the need to motivate staff who can change as society changes. This is not unique to Latvia!

Vasyl Sheyko, rector of the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture, Ukraine, describes changes to the curriculum which will contribute to the development of LIS education to meet the challenges of the information society.

There are some very interesting papers here, but I would have preferred a thematic arrangement rather than arrangement alphabetically by first author (after the keynote paper by Michael Gorman) – and what a pity there is no index! I am sorry that few of the contributors took up Michael Gorman's point about the importance of traditional librarianship subjects. Subjects like cataloguing and indexing remain important in spite of – or, dare one say, because of – technological developments.