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Title: The future role of the Information Professional and the implications for information based courses i


1
The future role of the Information Professional
and the implications for information based
courses in Higher Education
  • Paul Catherall Author of Delivering E-Learning
    for Information Services in Higher Education,
    Chandos 2005PhD Candidate MMUhttp//www.draigw
    eb.co.uk/elearning

2
What is the Information Professional?
  • We do not use Librarianship for a variety of
    reasons one being that it is no longer much in
    favour and another being its more limited
    reflection of a somewhat static profession.
    (Gorman and Corbitt 2002).
  • An Information Professional is a person who
    works with information science, libraries,
    museums, or archives, although the field is
    changing rapidly to include other disciplines
    (Wikipedia).
  • Many traditional information roles no long have
    the term library or librarian in their job
    title You may see the following job titles in
    job adverts Information Manager, Internet
    Librarian, Knowledge Assistant, Learning Advisor,
    Web Developer (CILIP Web Site 2007).
  • The advent of the Internet has led to a
    requirement to revisit the traditional role of
    the Information Professional and a need to
    refocus on core competences.(Marfleet and Kelly
    1999).
  • Respondents reported 1,031 different job titles,
    and reported to line managers with 1,163
    different titles (LISU survey 2004).

3
The LISU Life_at_Work Surveys
  • Undertaken in 2004 and 2006 by LISU (the Library
    and Information Statistics Unit) at Loughborough
    University on behalf of CILIP (the Chartered
    Institute of Library and Information
    Professionals).
  • Broadly compatible surveys.
  • Based on voluntary responses.
  • Circulated electronically in the LIS sectors
    (Library Information Services/ Science) via
    email lists, CILIP Web pages, newsletters etc.
  • Focused on job roles / nature of work undertaken,
    pay conditions, professional standing, staff
    education and related areas.

4
Key Results
  • Both surveys revealed a perceived move away from
    posts requiring professional qualifications.
  • Approx 82 of respondents were women in both
    surveys.
  • Slight decrease in numbers reporting job title as
    librarian or assistant librarian by 2006 (1
    drop).
  • Wide diversity of job titles (1,031 different job
    titles reported in 2004).
  • Decrease in numbers reporting working in in HE
    libraries from 27 to 24.5 in FE from 7.6 to
    5.3 and in National Libraries 4.6 to 1.0.
  • Small increases in numbers working in public,
    health, prison and school libraries.
  • Significant decrease in subject-based skills
    (40.8 in 2004 to 9.6 in 2006).
  • Increase in the following skills reported
    negotiation skills, strategic planning,
    marketing.
  • Reduction in response rate of approx 48 (2,589
    valid responses in 2004 but 1,347 valid
    responses in 2006).
  • Criticism ? little coverage of ICT skills,
    digital resource skills, innovation etc.

5
Is the LISU Survey representative?
  • LISU Annual Library Statistics 2006
  • http//www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/lisu/downloa
    ds/digest06.pdf

6
Possible Interpretations
  • Majority of respondents in both surveys were
    Chartered members of CILIP (despite being open to
    non-CILIP members), hence the limited response
    rate within the wider LIS sector.
  • Approx 50 of original CILIP members failed to
    complete the survey in 2006, does this reflect a
    decline in CILIP membership or decline in member
    activism?
  • Affords an incomplete view of the LIS sector and
    the nature of activities undertaken (what are the
    other 86,000 doing?)
  • Range of job titles reported are diverse, yet
    this is only a small sample of the wider LIS
    workforce.
  • Non-traditional and information science based
    roles appear largely absent.
  • Does this demonstrate a divided information
    sector - one working within the LIS
    establishment and another developing
    independently?

7
Recent Trends in the Information Sector
  • General diversification of roles across the
    Library and Information sectors.
  • Rapid emergence of network-based resources (the
    digital library) and access to these resources
    from any networked computer at home, work etc.
  • Increasing hybridisation and encroachment of
    Information and Communications Technology within
    the LIS sphere of activity.
  • Growing awareness of the Competitive Space
    (Hughes 2000) occupied by LIS services in the
    liberalised Public Sector, with increasing
    involvement by business, charities and other
    organisations (i.e. under the Private Finance
    Initiative).
  • Increasing remit for Third Mission activities,
    including increased scrutiny of affordability,
    profitability and public accountability.
  • Increasing remit for widening access and
    accessibility to facilitate the Lifelong Learning
    / Learning Society agenda.
  • Significant debate since mid 90s, on how the LIS
    sector will meet these challenges.
  • But is this being presumptuous? Will Information
    Professionals even have the chance to compete to
    manage LIS services in the future?

8
The Challenges of the Information Professional
  • Above all the information professional must
    become closely aligned to the business, able to
  • ride the wave of change in both the business and
    in technology. (Marfleet and Kelly 1999).
  • Yes, but how is this achievable?
  • 5 Key areas
  • ICT (Information and Communications Technology)
    and the World Wide Web
  • Role Diversification
  • The Business Facing Library
  • Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning
  • Core Competencies and Critical Librarianship

9
The Challenges of the Information Professional1.
ICT and the Web
  • For the information professional, the question
    must be how to unlearn and relearn
  • how to maintain a valid role in the provision
    of information at a time when
  • developments in technology have brought the power
    of information searching to
  • the non-specialist. (Marfleet and Kelly 1999).

10
The Challenges of the Information Professional1.
ICT and the Web
  • Increasing demand for ICT / network-based
    information systems within Information Services,
    including Library Management Systems,
    Repositories, Knowledge Management Systems,
    Personal Portfolios, Content Management Systems,
    Virtual Learning Environments, Student Records
    Systems and Web-based portals to information.
  • Encroachment of ICT departments on traditional
    LIS areas of expertise, including management and
    support of systems, system budgets, staff budgets
    etc.
  • Increase in hybrid job titles (Systems Librarian,
    E-Librarian etc.) requiring deeper ICT expertise.
  • Even traditional roles will be expected to
    improve ICT knowledge to maintain skills for
    working more closely with systems and liaising
    with system administrators.
  • Competition from ICT providers in business (farm
    solutions) and free services for users on the
    World Wide Web, such as Google (Maps, Earth,
    Book-Search, Scholar, Gmail etc.)
  • Rapid emergence of alternative information
    sources on the World Wide Web, structured and
    unstructured.
  • Steady rise in ICT literacy through statutory
    education and growth in home computer and
    Internet access (13.9 million households April
    2007 http//www.statistics.gov.uk).
  • Emerging model of self-reliant user, empowered by
    ICTs - at the cost of information literacy?
  • Information behaviour widening to include
    user-focused communication tools (e.g. Blogs,
    Wikis, Social Networks and other Web 2.0
    systems).
  • Information Professionals must be flexible enough
    to work within this emerging context, adopting
    more specialist ICT and innovation skills whilst
    maintaining the core values and ethics of
    librarianship is this the real challenge?
  • Emerging technical roles will increasingly exist
    outside the library or Information Services
    department in the future.

11
The Challenges of the Information Professional1.
ICT and the Web
12
The Challenges of the Information Professional2.
Role Diversification
  • the profession has moved out of its home in the
    humanities and possibly the
  • softer social sciences into a more
    technologically aware and harder field allied
  • with management, information systems, computer
    science, etc.
  • (Gorman and Corbitt 2002).

13
The Challenges of the Information Professional2.
Role Diversification
  • Wide range of influences on the LIS sector -
    diluting the traditional identity of the LIS
    worker?
  • Influences include government agenda for ICT
    uptake (Peoples Network) and widening access to
    education (e.g. Learn Direct). Lifelong learning
    targets have seen some community libraries become
    the focus for community education.
  • Decline in public funding for public and special
    libraries in some parts of the UK, resulting in
    diversification of library services as community
    information centres.
  • The national Employment and Enterprise agendas
    have seen some libraries provide access to these
    services, with specialist careers and enterprise
    services in most FE colleges and universities.
  • Increasing uptake of ICTs have resulted in demand
    for Information Professionals with higher levels
    of IT expertise.
  • A higher profile for marketing, commercial and
    enterprise related activities have seen LIS
    services develop closer links with marketing and
    enterprise departments.
  • Decline in subject librarianship, but growth in
    demand for online learning materials, learning
    objects, online repositories and cataloguing of
    online resources (e.g. via Worldcat).
  • New managerialism within LIS departments, Total
    Quality Management, Appraisal, greater
    accountability and scrutiny by the organisation
    as employer (e.g. HERA job evaluation in HE).
  • Growth in reception-style information points, not
    necessarily located in libraries.
  • Need for Information Professionals to apply LIS
    skills to a more diverse range of roles,
    including information selection, content
    management, knowledge management and ICT skills
    across emerging non-traditional environments and
    employers.

14
The Challenges of the Information Professional3.
The Business Facing Library
  • In a world in which information forms the basis
    of economic wealth, there is going
  • to be increased demand for all sorts of goods and
    services. Demand rises because
  • knowledge can lead to prosperity. (Hughes 2000).

15
The Challenges of the Information Professional3.
The Business Facing Library
  • Government advocacy for the Third Mission,
    developing employability and economic prosperity
    within the locality and nation as a whole.
  • Recent legislation describes a continuum between
    educational providers and economic stakeholders
    including The Learning Age (1998) and 21st
    Century Skills Realising Our Potential (2003).
  • Advocacy for greater relationship by the public
    sector with employers / local business,
    corporations and industry.
  • In community libraries, emerging focus on
    information provision and delivery of support
    services for businesses, entrepreneurs and job
    seekers in FE/ HE focus on aligning education
    with business-centric subjects / programmes and
    provision of related projects/ services,
    including careers and enterprise support.
  • A period of funding uncertainty for some public
    sector organisations.
  • Emerging Enterprise remit for developing
    projects/ research, training opportunities and
    financial sustainability achieved by obtaining
    grants, cutting costs, diversifying services and
    increasing profitability.
  • Impact on job roles in the LIS sector - greater
    liaison with business, employability agencies
    etc. potential for focus on sales or
    diversification for profit-making activities,
    possibility for increased marketing of
    diversified services.
  • In the future, Information Professionals will not
    simply support practitioners in these areas, but
    their role will become providers of these
    services.

16
The Challenges of the Information Professional4.
Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning
  • There are four principles underlying our approach
    to improved
  • publicly-funded training provision for adults. It
    should
  • Be led by the needs of employers and learners.
  • Be shaped by the skill needs prioritised in each
    sector, region and locality.
  • Make the best use of Information and
    Communications Technology (ICT) to deliver and
    assess learning.
  • Give colleges and training providers maximum
    discretion to decide how best to respond to
    needs...
  • (21st Century Skills Realising our Potential
    2003)

17
The Challenges of the Information Professional4.
Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning
  • Wide range of recent legislation advocating
    increased focus on education and training for
    economic viability.
  • The Learning Age (1998) white paper set out the
    New Labour aims for improving access and
    management of education for society.
  • Increased remit on community libraries and all
    aspects of the information sector for a more
    inclusive approach to delivering and supporting
    education, including measures to encourage
    participation from non-traditional entrants,
    mature users and minority groups.
  • Remit for Lifelong Learning, to encourage
    continuous development of skills throughout life
    to facilitate personal economic prosperity.
  • Impact on libraries as centres of community
    learning, increased use of FE and HE resources
    within communities, e.g. WULF (Welsh Universities
    Lifelong Learning) project.
  • Increasing remit on LIS workers/ professionals to
    facilitate broader range of training and user
    support, beyond information literacy.
  • Increased diversity of users seen in increase of
    access to education at all levels through
    personal credit systems, alternative course entry
    accreditation and remit on educational providers
    to ensure courses are accessible and do not
    discriminate on issues of gender, age, ethnicity
    or economic background.
  • Growing trend toward mature age profile and
    part-time study in the FE and HE sectors.
  • Greater demands for user/ student support often
    requiring improved learning support services.
  • Do these emerging training demands offer a new
    remit for Information Professionals?

18
The Challenges of the Information Professional5.
Core Competencies and Critical Librarianship
  • Period of change / pressures for LIS
    professionals, emergence of new managerialism,
    businessification and consumer-focused services.
  • Internet and Web offer a serious challenge to
    authoritative information selection, description,
    management etc.
  • Potential for employers to cut corners and opt
    for user-reliant, systemised approach to
    information management.
  • Whilst it is possible for Information
    professionals to adapt to emerging hybridised and
    diversified roles, core competencies remain
    crucial to maintain professionalism and a quality
    of service for users.
  • Need to remain active within the community of LIS
    practitioners, e.g. maintaining awareness of
    technologies and best practice, reading current
    literature/ journals, communicating via
    discussion groups and other channels,
    collaborating with colleagues and participating
    in professional events.
  • Need to retain core competencies of
    Librarianship, especially within ICT based roles.
    Gorman and Corbitt (2002) have defined the
    following core competencies for emerging hybrid
    LIS roles Managing Information, Disseminating
    and Delivering Information, Sourcing information
    and understanding User Requirements.

19
The Challenges of the Information Professional5.
Core Competencies and Critical Librarianship
  • Critical Librarianship is anther valuable trait,
    encompassing the ability to critique and
  • analyse information beyond its surface quality or
    value, instead questioning the
  • motives and rationale behind the information and
    its originating source
  • The ways by which information is controlled and
    mediated has a serious influence on the
  • ways people think, how they communicate, what
    they believe is the "real world", what
  • the limits of the permissible are. This applies
    equally to information that comes through
  • the channels of the mass media, through our
    bookshops or through our libraries.
  • (Information for Social Change, Policy
    Document 2007).

20
The Implications for LIS Education
  • As a consequence of trends in the wider
    Information sector, it can be seen that the
  • corresponding academic area of LIS (Library and
    Information Science) is currently
  • undergoing a process of transition.
  • The boundaries of the LIS profession and the
    academic discipline have become less
  • and less clearly defined. Names of organisations
    have added information to library and have
  • even omitted the L word completely to try to
    embrace the diversification caused by
  • information and communication technology (ICT)
    and employment trends. There are more and
  • more jobs but fewer and fewer where LIS education
    and professional status is a prerequisite.
  • (Lowe 2006)

21
The Implications for LIS Education
  • Traditional library schools have begun to
    integrate with Informatics-based departments.
  • The HE system allows for a more diverse
    programme, i.e. for a range of combined subjects,
    e.g. Business, Information Studies, Computing
    (within the same undergraduate degree).
  • Staff teaching within LIS Education are
    increasingly required to demonstrate experience
    in the wider, emerging LIS sector, i.e. in areas
    such as managing careers libraries, in ICT and
    Web development, Content Management Systems and
    E-Learning (Virtual Learning Environments).
  • The Research Assessment Exercise, QAA audits and
    other regular assessments require the LIS
    department to demonstrate a portfolio of taught
    modules and research which reflect the vocational
    climate and current state of technology and
    practice.
  • The employability mission, first destinations
    targets etc. require the LIS department to
    develop students skills to meet the demands of
    the wider job market, including emerging roles
    aligned to information systems, Web development,
    content management, E-learning and other
    non-traditional areas.
  • There is a new imperative to prepare the student
    for flexibility in applying information skills in
    a non-traditional context, not only in
    information systems but in areas such as services
    to business, careers and employability, student
    support services and the management of
    organisational data.
  • There is a considerable challenge from outside
    the LIS tradition to manage information systems,
    especially in the growing hybrid roles of
    Web-based information services. It is important
    to offer students basic Web development, database
    and data handling skills to enable them to work
    on the broad range of information systems often
    involving aspects of information management such
    as taxonomies, use of metadata, hierarchies,
    indexing and retrieval techniques.

22
Summary
  • Need to develop flexible, highly skilled
    Information Professionals who are conscious of
    information and data as a discipline.
  • Need to develop graduates who can adapt
    information competencies to the diverse range of
    roles emerging in the wider LIS sector.
  • Need to recognise the decline of some aspects of
    Librarianship as an inevitable effect of the Web,
    but also remain conscious of the value of
    specialist academic knowledge, adapting this as
    necessary to job roles.
  • Need for the LIS academic faculty to form
    partnerships with ICT, Informatics and
    Information Science departments, to ensure a
    rounded graduate capable of meeting the demands
    of the changing job market.
  • Need to recognise the growth of hybrid IT / LIS
    roles, equipping LIS students in core and deep IT
    skills to manage systems effectively.
  • Recognise the growth in marketing, employability
    and business-related spheres of activity,
    providing core skills in these areas beyond
    conventional information literacy.
  • Encourage the retention of librarianship ethics
    and values including attention to user needs,
    quality of information and services, professional
    integrity, critical librarianship, continuous
    self development and engagement in communities of
    practice to develop knowledge and skills.
  • Recognise the need to update skills but to
    preserve core competencies and adapt these to a
    wide range of non-traditional roles.

23
Selected Bibliography
  • CILIP 2004 Salary Survey, Cited 06/06/07 (online
    resource) http//www.cilip.org.uk/jobscareers/li
    fework_survey/survey2004
  • CILIP Employer Pack (Quality People Equals
    Quality Service), Cited 06/06/07 (online
    resource) http//www.cilip.org.uk/jobscareers/pay
    andstatus/QPbenefits.htm
  • Gorman, G. E. and Corbitt, B. J. (2002) Core
    Competencies in information management education,
    New Library World, Vol. 103, No. 1182/1183, pp.
    346-445
  • Great Britain, Home Office (2003) 21st Century
    Skills Realising Our Potential. London HMSO
  • Hughes, C. A. (2000) Information Services for
    Higher Education A New Competitive Space, D-Lib
    Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 12
  • Information for Social Change Policies and
    Procedures, Cited 06/06/07 (online resource)
    http//libr.org/isc/policy.html
  • Lowe, M. (2006) LIS Education in Britain an
    overview, Biblioteconomia i documentacio, No. 17
  • Marfleet, J. and Kelly, C. (1999) Leading the
    Field the role of the information professional
    in the next century, The Electronic Library, Vol.
    17, No. 6
  • Wikipedia, Information Professional, Cited
    06/06/07 (online resource) http//en.wikipedia.or
    g/wiki/Information_professional
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