Managing Library Education

The “L” Word

The issue of technology in libraries and thus the need for librarians to be technologically literate is not the matter of much debate.What is debatable is the organizational framework within which the technological education of librarians will take place.In fact, one of the most contentious issues is whether it is librarians being educated.Tenopir (2000) points out that the word “library” has been dropped from the names of such schools as the Universities of Tennessee, Michigan, and Syracuse.The new schools are called more generic names like “School of Information.”The emphasis on information sciences, especially information technologies, is of concern to many.Wiegand (2000) worried that “LIS educators [are] so eager to drop the ‘L’ word from their program titles.”Weigand’s theory is that they are caught up in the popular hype of information sciences which focused on process at the expense of character and authority.

Thomas Childers of Drexel (1998) had little sympathy for educators bemoaning the demise of the "L” word.He blamed the library schools for failing to see that by clinging to old ways they were creating a situation where students did not want to be associated with libraries, but rather wanted to be able to compete in what he called the “hard information systems” area.Cronin, Stiffler, and Day (1993) noted that many information professionals thought the MLS degree was out of sync with the new information environment.In these writers’ view, the library schools were going to have to change not only their curriculum, but also their culture.A more entrepreneurial attitude to providing information needed to be cultivated, and more acceptance given to the ever-widening employment scope of information professionals.

The impetus for the shunning of the “L” word may come from the fact that the public perception of librarians is not always as cutting-edge technology wizards, although librarians have been in the forefront of interconnectedness since before the World Wide Web gave the concept glamour.In fact, the technology world that library educators seem to fear offending by use of the “L” word, often use the “L” word, offering Digital Libraries and Resource Libraries on countless websites.The names by which library and information science schools are called is far less important than the content of the educational offerings.

Technology Understanding

While the need for librarians to possess technological knowledge is accepted, there is concern about the way technology is incorporated into the learning experience.Reid-Smith (1990) stressed the need to understand the principles associated with artificial intelligence, and to gain sufficient experience to be able to evaluate systems uses and limitations.Downie (1999) separated the library science as user oriented from the information science as systems oriented.He concluded that the goal of both tracks was to educate professionals who understood “the strengths and weaknesses of the technological solutions surrounding them” and could relate to both users and systems.Doty (1998) agreed that education should focus on the conceptual skills so that “neither we nor the students are tethered to specific technologies or applications.”He went further, though, in saying that schools need to be assertive in public policy discussions about information technology involving design and implementation of systems.Budd and Miller (1999) stressed that “technology is an integral, but not an isolated, component” of information processing.Technology is a given in almost any profession in the twenty-first century.Librarians have a need to understand the concepts and theories behind the technologies so that they can grow with existing technologies and understand new technologies as they are made available.

Core Curriculum

There is much written, but little agreement, about what the core of a library program should be.There seem to be as many approaches as there are library schools.The University of South Carolina (Curran, Bajjaly, Feehan and O’Neill, 1998) used focus groups to find out what both students and employers wanted from a library school.They found that while knowledge of the latest technology was a high priority, so were interpersonal skills, flexibility, maturity and ability to manage change.

Buttlar and du Mont (1996) asked alumni of library schools what competencies were most valuable in their professional lives.They found five areas in the current curricula that needed work:1) curriculum needed to be broadened to increase the “scope of interests” of students; 2) greater attention needed to be given to the external environment that effects institutions in which students will work; 3) service implications of all library related jobs needed to be included; 4) “integration of curricula across functional areas” was needed; and 5) more attention needed to be paid to interpersonal skills.

The need for interpersonal skills and broadened understanding appears often in the literature on educating librarians and information managers.Broadbent (1998) wrote about educating knowledge managers within the context of the library school.She defines knowledge work as being “about the acquisition, creation, packaging or application or reuse of knowledge.”There is much to do with technology in the knowledge management approach; however, Broadbent said that if librarians want to be key players in this area, they need to expand their understanding of the perspectives of the other players in this area.Broadbent stated that library educators should not want the knowledge managers of the future to be educated in MBA programs.

One thread in the literature compared library education to the natural world and came up with the title “The Panda Syndrome.” (Van House and Sutton, 1996)They explained that the panda’s near extinction is due to the fact that the panda never adapted to any diet other than bamboo forests, which are disappearing from the ecology.Library schools, they argued, need to adapt to new technologies and societal realities, or they will lose their jurisdiction over information functions to the computer and business schools.They point out that those fields, computers and business, tend to be better funded and more prestigious than library schools and suggest that library schools ally with these rivals in order to broaden the curriculum, especially in the areas of technology and management.

While there is much more emphasis on adding technology to the core curricula, management is also an area that is increasing in importance.Most library schools already have a management element in their core curriculum, but unless the subject matter has been revised lately, they may not be meeting the needs of library students looking to the business world of information brokerage.Kehoe (1997) noted that information brokers needed not only extensive reference knowledge but also small business management skills.

The organization of the twenty-first century is probably going to be of a “collaborative, participative, networked, flexible nature.” (Dresang and Robbins, 1999)Whether a librarian is working in a library or brokering information, an understanding of the workings of the new organization structure and functioning is important.Dresang and Robbins present many different models of organizations of the future, but teamwork and collaboration are part of all of them.

Stuart Sutton (1999) continued the investigation he and Van House began in “The Panda Syndrome” by looking at how change can be managed to maximize the effectiveness of an evolution.In order to build a learning environment where the foundations of process are understood, but innovation is encouraged, he identified two dimensions of professional learning:“(1) education in basic competencies necessary to practice in today’s world (legacy knowledge), and (2) education in the processes of innovation (new knowledge).”

It is not enough to pass on the competencies of the profession; the processes must also be analyzed and questioned and new information synthesized in order to move the profession forward.Sutton concluded that the process of understanding change and moving forward is an exercise in lifelong learning.

The core curriculum espoused by most writers on the subject includes an element of human psychology and understanding and interacting well with others, whether they are users or co-workers.The need for management in the core curriculum also indicates the need for knowledge of how organizations of humans act and react.Technology is less important for these writers than the understanding of information and its migration to knowledge.Technology is a tool that is very important in our modern world, but is still just a tool to allow the human to manipulate information and increase understanding of the intricacies of knowledge transfer.

The Educators

The dilemma of revising the core curriculum has caused some writers to return to the beginnings of library education. Ostler and Dahlin (1995) decided that Melvil Dewey started the profession on a dangerous path when he placed the emphasis of library education on the practical operations of libraries and neglected the theoretical underpinnings guiding such practice.Ostler, Dahlin and Willardson (1995) stated that “without an enduring body of theory, library school leaders have no guiding principles to point the way in reforming and updating library school curricula.” (p. 3,4)Seavy and Robbins-Carter (1986) questioned whether there is a theoretical base to library or information science or if the profession has borrowed the bases of other disciplines like sociology or psychology.They proposed what they called an “integrated core” in which such traditional subjects as reference and cataloging are added as components of such subjects as foundations, communications, and research.

The foundation and theoretical side of the equation is more closely identified with library science while technology is identified with information science.Auld (1990) cautioned that curriculum revision that neglects either part is inadequate to prepare information professionals.Day (1996) attempted to bring the theory of postmodern science to the information profession.He noted that the epistemology of knowledge included theory, method, and object, and that postmodern science allowed these to be understood in “mobile and shifting economies of information flows that allow objects to express themselves in their relations with theories, methods and other objects.” (p. 319)He argued that since the relation of method to information has always been of interest to librarians, postmodern science pulls LIS education from the margins of science to its center through the study of information.

This problem of theory versus practice has caused an identity crisis in library education.A member of the ALA Committee on Accreditation (Quattrocchi, 1999) noted that very few of the library schools visited during his tenure on the committee were able to articulate their mission, goals and objectives.Some had well written statements, but they had not reached into the culture of the faculty.O’Connor and Mulvaney (1996) blamed this lack of cohesive vision for the weakening of library schools.They say that “library schools lost turf battles when educators could not effectively explain, for example, how and why their course offerings did not overlap with business or computer science curricula.”Hildenbrand (1999) chide her colleagues for having too few personal contacts with other disciplines within their universities.External alliances on campus are essential to the health of library programs.

The idea of taking convergence, teamwork, and flexibility from management theory and applying it to library education has received a great deal of study.Forming strategic alliances with such departments as computer systems, telecommunications, and business is a way of keeping library schools viable (Ostler, Dahlin and Willardson, 1995, p. 70-72).If library schools are not more aggressive in redefining their profession, more and more information studies will find their way into more assertive programs in business and technical schools.Berry (1991) agreed that library schools need to market themselves not only to the public, but also within their institutions.Childers (1996) described the Drexel program as applying the business school concepts of marketing and customer orientation to their curriculum.Drexel believes one must tie the curriculum to the market demand.That philosophy is behind some of the drastic changes at Berkeley, whose dean was quoted (Mangan, 2000) as saying “You can’t train people for jobs that aren’t there.”Berkeley is sending most of its graduates directly to Silicon Valley.

In a telling piece on the problems faced by schools in revamping their curriculum, Watson-Boone and Weigand (1996) conducted a survey of library school deans, the Committee on Accreditation of the ALA,alumni of library schools, and employers of MLS graduates.While there was a 73% agreement between the deans and the COA on what was important in an MLS school, there was only 45% agreement between deans and employers.Accreditation and reputation of the school, together with faculty awareness of new developments in the field, were essential to all groups.But employers also ranked knowledge of new technologies as well as how prepared graduates were for their first job as essential.The deans ranked both those areas only highly important behind such issues as faculty research.These studies are a help in determining where the consciousness of the educators needs to change in order to effect change in their institutions.

There may be some schools and some disciplines where practitioners can still reside in an ivory tower.That is not the case in most universities, however, and certainly not the case in the realm of library and information science.The lack of adequate search engines for the World Wide Web, or agreement on ontology by the search engines available, are areas where library science needs to assert itself.The proliferation of information of all types on the Web precludes the ordinary individual from being able to absorb and analyze the data available.The need for mediation by information specialists is very real, but to educate those specialists, library educators must broaden their perspective from the institution to the phenomenon of information transmission.

Program Structure

The problem of including all the knowledge needed within the framework of a core curriculum that still allows flexibility for tailoring programs to meet the diverse needs of information providers, and doing all this in a one-year program has taxed the imaginations of many educators.As early as 1982, Greer (1982) suggested adding prerequisites to be completed before entering the MLS program.He proposed three introductory “laboratories” to introduce the student to 1) technology and cataloging, 2) media techniques and software and 3) basic reference tools.The idea of prerequisites, especially in the area of technology, has remained a constant in the literature.(Lowell, 1997; Crosby, 1999)

Other writers suggest that an undergraduate program is the answer.One suggests a program for undergraduate education for the “lower grades of library professionals based on knowledge of method.” (Penniman, 1995),andsuggests that graduate study could then focus on scholarly concepts and administration.These ideas are echoed in an article on the University of Arizona (Fallis and Fricke, 1999), which states that the practical aspects of librarianship “are simply not appropriate material for graduate-level courses.”Paris (1999) points out that Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and North Carolina all have undergraduate studies in library science, and these programs are viable.The Drexel program also fits into that category.

At the other end of the spectrum are writers who believe that the MLS degree should be expanded to a two-year curriculum.Pearson and Webb (1988) suggest both undergraduate work in technology and an intensification and lengthening of the duration of the graduate program.Rapple (1996) suggests that a second year of MLS is needed for any attempt to specialize, and that there should be more interaction between the library school and other disciplines during a second year of specialization.

Schools

For all the writing about strategic alliances with other disciplines, only a few ALA accredited programs show classes from other schools as part of their curriculum.Rutgers and University of Alabama have both moved their programs into the School of Communication; however, neither have classes from the other school listed in their catalogs.Syracuse University, University of Pittsburgh, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and University of Michigan have included in their information statements the fact that students may structure their MLS in such a way as to take advantage of classes offered in other Masters programs on campus.There are no direct links to those classes in the online catalog: however, the University of Indiana has both a Masters of Library Science and a Masters of Information Science, and students may cross those boundaries in choice of courses.The University of Illinois has a very extensive curriculum, which includes such non-traditional library classes as Systems Analysis and Management, and Economics of Information.

There may be more cross-campus partnerships than is evident from the online catalog in these and other schools.It would be interesting to research how many non-library school classes are taken at the various campuses.Some of the schools, notably the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign, offer distance learning, which might make it more difficult to provide classes from other disciplines.

The University of Wisconsin – Madison has a different approach to addressing the problem of theory versus practice.They have a laboratory library (Robbins and Green, 1996) that allows the student to experience both the academic and practical side of librarianship.The library has also been a good way to expose students to new technology and new management styles.Many students have elected to complete their practicum projects in the laboratory library.

Berry (1999) studied how library students feel about their schools.The first complaint of the students surveyed was a lack of support from the parent colleges and universities for the programs.The students sensed a lack of respect from the rest of the university for the library and information science school. While the faculties were generally praised, where there were complaints they centered on the lack of recent experience in libraries on the part of the professors.Adjunct professors were liked for their current information and practice.The students were also concerned about the “perceived favoring of information sciences over librarianship.”Yet, students from nearly every program complained that their technological resources were inadequate.The students seemed to be asking for a balance between information and library sciences, and taking for granted that technology was a part of each.

Berry’s (1999) study also found that many of the students felt that they did not have a sufficient introduction to librarianship.Many wished they had a comprehensive foundations course to point them on their professional path.The core courses were criticized by nearly all the students but for as many various reasons as the educators have put forward:too much procedure, too little theory, too little practical knowledge, too little or too much technology.Turning that criticism around, Seavy and Robbins-Carter (1986) said that “the most encouraging aspect of education for librarianship today is the amount of experimentation taking place in the schools.”They define the core as “simply what each person identifies as the core and believes everyone else should or does agree to.”

Conclusion

The vast expansion of the amount of data and information available in the twenty-first century has created a situation where managing information and information systems is critical to the functioning of society.Business and technology have been encroaching on the traditional domain of librarians as mediators between information and information user.How to manage the changes in the library and information world has been the object of much study and discussion, which usually comes back to the problem of what should be the core curriculum of a school of library and information science.

As the discussion has unfolded, library and information educators have applied various theories to their own institutions.Some have dropped the word “library” from their names; others have turned to emphasizing the technology driving the information explosion.Still other educators have insisted that the focus needs to be on the theoretical thinking behind both the technology and the profession.Swigger (2000) asked if there had to be one way.He points out that “. . . choice is in fact the essence of human condition:more options than any individual can pursue.”In the information age “review and selection are essential.”The same could be applied to library schools.

Trying to design a library and information science school with a one-size-fits-all mentality just will not work.There are too many variables in the profession.The educational needs of a school media specialist and those of an information broker may be substantially different.A core curriculum requires those elements of the professional education that cross the boundaries of all the myriad of information professions.A basic understanding of the data to information to knowledge transfer process from an intellectual and a technical perspective is a key component that brings together the human cognitive processes and artificial intelligence mechanisms.The foundations of the information professions and the ethical implications of such data to knowledge transfer are elements that should be common ground for all practitioners.Management of self and of organizations is central to almost all of the modern information professions.Technology cannot be divorced from any of the aspects of a core curriculum.Whether a strong technological background is required upon entrance into a program or is acquired along with the theory and practice, it must be included in every phase of a library and information education.

The vast array of choices available within the library and information science world mandates that most schools rely on other sectors within the university to provide some courses and paths of interest that cannot be economically or realistically provided by one department.The core curriculum needs to be strong enough so that the student does not lose the values and understanding of the library and information science perspective on information transfer that is the grounding of the profession.Educators need to do a better job of articulating those values in the classroom and in the community in order for library and information science to take a central role in the information era.

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