Search results

The paper, based on the findings of the Library and Information Commission (LIC) report on Cross‐sectoral Mobility in the LIS Profession, considers some of the barriers to career development within the Library and Information Services profession. It focuses specifically upon difficulties experienced by LIS professionals in moving to different sectors of the profession. It discusses issues such as professional segregation; employer prejudice; poor employment strategies; lack of confidence among LIS professionals; training; and lack of professional support. In addition to outlining some of the barriers to the career development of LIS professionals, the paper offers a number of recommendations for employers, professional bodies and LIS professionals that may help to alleviate many of these barriers.

Considers a number of issues related to the development, at the University of Central England in Birmingham, of a distance learning course in research skills for public librarians. The course was initially developed as part of the Library and Information Commission funded project, Developing Research in Public Libraries. Discusses the need for a stronger culture of research in public libraries and the immediate and long‐term benefits, for public librarians, of a distance learning course in research skills. The evaluation of a pilot distance‐learning course indicated that librarians enrolled on the course perceived it as offering much needed training in a range of research skills. The main concerns relate to the lack of support from public library managers and the limited opportunities for librarians to share their knowledge with their colleagues. Reinforces the arguments for a distance learning course in research training that offers librarians the opportunity to develop and consolidate their research skills in their own time and at their own pace. However, the authors recognise that such a course can only accomplish its aims if public library authorities are prepared to support and encourage staff enrolled on the course.

Suggests that, while quality systems and the measurement of quality in higher education are much discussed, there has been little focus on what quality organizations are actually like to work in. Quality systems generate a quality culture and this is what is at the heart of successful quality organizations. Examines organizational culture and indicates the main features of successful quality cultures appropriate to higher education. It links these with quality values and beliefs. These are expressed in terms of rites and rituals, myths and legends within the organization. Readers are invited to consider their own organizational culture by working through a specially designed exercise. They are asked how rewards and recognition can be made relevant to a quality culture and what will happen if some parts of HE fail to adopt a quality ethos in keeping with the values of higher education.

Looks at the role a mentor can play in the career development of librarians and information professionals. It uses research carried out in 1995‐96 as the basis for its focus on the value of mentoring as a career development tool for individuals. Follows a brief discussion of the nature of mentoring and the changing patterns of career development, by presentation and discussion of the research findings. Concludes with a summary of some draft guidelines on mentoring which summarize research findings on effective ways of initiating and maintaining a mentoring relationship.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the seventeenth to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items, in English published in 1990. A few are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.

Mentoring is a concept that originated between 800 and 700 BC and which is still in existence in organisations irrespective of size, nature of ownership, type of industry or geographic location. In its most primal form it is regarded as a method according to which a less experienced employee (protégé or mentee) is guided and advised by a more experienced and skilled employee (mentor) in terms of life as well as professional skills. However, this definition has developed over time as organisations applied mentoring in a more structured manner and institutionalised it within formal organisational processes. Mentoring was, therefore, regarded as a method to “systematically develop the skills and leadership abilities of less experienced members of the organization” (SPA Consultants, 1995, p. 14). Mentoring has been in use within the library and information science profession from the mid-1980s and various publications have discussed the use of mentoring from an American, Australian and British perspective. However, relatively few publications are available regarding the use of mentoring within the South African contexts, and therefore an extensive discussion on the implementation of a structured mentoring scheme at the National Library of South Africa (NLSA) is included in the article. This study draws particularly on recent literature on the knowledge economy and more specifically knowledge management to suggest ways in which the concept of mentoring should be revised. Mentoring should henceforth be seen as a knowledge management technique to support the creation and sharing of tacit knowledge rather than merely a technique to develop less experienced individuals. This revised view of mentoring is of particular importance to ensure the sustainability of library and information service organisations in the knowledge economy.

THE library year ends in no spectacular way. If posterity has any cause to remember 1932 it will probably be as of a year when the doctrine of economy was raised to the rank of a divine dogma by a world of debtors and creditors all crazed with fear over international debts. A year of hurried committees producing reports for the reduction of expenditures, beneficient or otherwise; especially, in this last month, a report which if implemented would cripple almost every local activity, and set back the clock of social effort at least thirty years. The intention of such reports is no doubt good; their effects are yet to be seen. So far, the increased parsimony in national and local affairs seems only to have intensified unemployment without bettering the general situation. A reaction against all this is beginning, not a moment too soon, and all who care for the finer things in our civilisation will be compelled to stand against the more unsocial recommendations of these reports.

I should like to begin with an analogy, which was used originally by Alan Gilchrist in a paper on cost‐effectiveness some years ago. The analogy is repeated almost verbatim because it says precisely what I want to say, better than I could have said it myself.

Describes the experiences of an author following the publication of the first book on the subject of mentoring for librarians and information professionals. Some examples of presentations are given with an analysis of some particular issues which arose in each case. The whole experience of writing and subsequent dissemination was one of significant career development for the author, a point made more symbiotic by the subject of the book, mentoring.