ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

CE and the Information Environment

Continuing Education

Since the publication of M. V. Porat’s The Information Economy in 1977, there has been a growing concern about the role librarians will play in the emergence of information-rich societies. During this decade, as Edwin Parker notes, “the focus of attention will be on the information technologies In that respect, librarians are doing quite well in learning about new information media and systems, such as teletext communication, microelectronics and computer graphics. The result of the advances in information technologies will be a new information infrastructure for the 1990s, in which libraries will be competing with a vast constellation of institutions and organizations which will be utilizing a much larger array of information services and goods.

Consequently, if librarians are going to be skilled professionals of the future, who possess specialized expertise about the information infrastructure, they are going to have to understand the relationships between the social structure of knowledge and “knowledge management,” i.e. the linkages between the creation, production, diffusion, application and utilization of knowledge.² In order to prepare for the information environment of the future, librarians need to, as Pauline Wilson has argued, enlarge and enrich the “knowledge base of librarianship. ”³ Specifically, librarians need to be recognized as having a specialized knowledge of information resource management and policy analysis.

The challenge to professional education, both within academic institutions and through continuing education, will be to master the body of knowledge necessary to fill the information occupations of the future.⁴ Other professionals, such as policy scientists, economists, public administrators and R&D specialists, have already re-emphasized the study of knowledge and are becoming information scientists in their own right, analysing the creation, dissemination, regulation and management of knowledge.⁵ At the same time that librarians learn about the new information technologies, they need to know how to use the information infrastructure to design new institutional and organizational arrangements that will change academic libraries into information and research management centers.

For example, the development and management of social science data archives at most academic institutions has taken place outside the library, yet such archives are an integral part of the social science information system. With the availability of non-bibliographic online database services, the lack of an interface between research and data libraries will have a profound effect on social science researchers. Ideally, social scientists would benefit by having a social science information system which incorporated machine readable data files and numerical online data bases with other sources of information. In order for there to be a data library in the research library, librarians would have to learn new skills of data librarianship. Additionally, the creation of a data center/research library might require the redesigning of institutional arrangements that allow for a variety of individuals, including librarians, computer scientists, etc., who share a combination of skills.

Consequently, librarians need to think beyond continuing education that focuses on interpersonal skills, such as developing supervisory techniques, and even library-bound concerns, such as collection management. This means concentrating on the economics, control, analysis and evaluation of information policies within society as a whole and being familiar with the growth of an entirely different social stratification of knowledge workers.

While it is much easier to conjecture about the future than to offer specific proposals for today, I would like to suggest some ideas for thought. First, I would like to see greater cooperation between ALA and other associations, such as SLA and ASIS in developing mutual workshops, conferences and educational opportunities. One possibility might be the establishment of regular summer institutes or Chautauqua-type courses, lasting two or three weeks each, at academic institutions. Secondly, librarians need the opportunity to work in other sectors of the information industry, both within their own institutions and outside. The opportunity to work in a computing center, research institute, data archive or with the office of research and development at one’s own institution would prove invaluable. Outside the university, there is myriad of possible work experiences one could find in the information industries.

Finally, if the above suggestions are to be possible, it would require greater funding support for educational and research opportunities than is presently available. In comparison to other members of an academic institution, for whom fellowships, development and research grants, etc. are a vital part of their continuing education, funding sources and institutional opportunities for librarians are quite meager. This is generally the case locally, as well as nationally. Correcting this situation will not be easy, but it is crucial that we begin.

-Robert Goehlert.

Editor’s Note: Robert Goehlert is librarian for economics and political science at Indiana University, Rloomington, and is currently chair of ACRL’s Continuing Education Committee.

Notes

1. Edwin B. Parker, “Information Services and Economic Growth,” The Information Society 1 (1981):77.
2. Nicholas L. Henry, “Knowledge Management: a New Concern For Public Administration,” Public Administration Review 34 (May/June 1974): 189.
3. Pauline Wilson, “Librarianship and ALA in a Post-Industrial Society,” American Libraries, March 1978, p. 128.
4. See Robert S. Taylor, “Reminiscing About the Future: Professional Education and the Information Environment,” Library Journal, Sept. 15, 1979, pp. 1871-1875.
5. Robert F. Rich. “Editor’s Introduction,” Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization 1 (Sept. 1979), p. 3.