Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The intellectual revolution that has taken place must be addressed in library and
information science (LIS) education. The metaphors of the emergent paradigm are
altering how we understand the global society, governments, science, individuals,
and human conditions. Individuals, groups, and society generally are affected by
this shift toward a more complex reality. The challenge for LIS education is to see
the world, professional organizations, information agencies, and technology with
fresh eyes. Innovation and change are constants bringing about a world of unin-
tended consequences and unpredictable situations.
LIS schools must teach students to be alert to societal changes and to lead
change in library and information services. More than ever before, information pro-
fessionals must be schooled in the important theories and concepts undergirding
the profession and the functions that the profession performs. Students must be
educated to see the “big picture” of the role of information in society and how it
is played out in the global information infrastructure. Students should understand
human information processing, information transfer, information engineering, and
information organization management. Information technology must be integrated
into learning about each of the information transfer processes, just as technology
is integrated into all aspects of our lives.
Leaders must be able to identify trends and to lead their staff to change services
and facilities to address these trends; therefore, LIS curricula must incorporate
“big-picture thinking” as well as applications of demonstrated principles of inform-
ation organization, dissemination, and utilization. Curricula must include theories,
principles, and applications, including the opportunities for students to practice
their newly acquired knowledge of the profession. Schools should include the op-
portunity for each student to have a supervised practicum experience in an inform-
ation agency, an internship, or the equivalent of student teaching.
Also, professionals in the field and LIS schools must recruit bright, creative, in-
novative, courageous, energetic students who can accomplish these goals. These
prospective information professionals must also possess those personal charac-
teristics that accompany effective leadership—especially a positive disposition and
self-confidence.
LIS schools traditionally have been able to recruit people who uphold the values
of the profession, but the value of openness to change has not been as promin-
ent. In the curriculum, there should be more of a focus on how research can drive
methods. More research-methods classes are needed in order to teach graduates
how to assess services offered and processes.
As one library leader stated, “Knowledge competencies are becoming less im-
portant than disposition competencies” (Morris 2014). Children's librarians must
be able to track the latest research on child development and brain development.
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