Article by Mary Ellen Bates (Bates Information Services)
Originally published in Online 34 no2 Mr/Ap 2010 p. 64 (websource here)
My knowledge of Library Education is rudimentary at best; what I know comes from the articles I've read and the blogs I've perused, and still I have not really obtained a good knowledge of how a modern (modern being within, say, the last five years) MLS or LIS program or however they'd like to title it these days actually functions and what it produces. I have discussed library education with those I've interviewed and those librarians I've just happened to meet, and the answer I seem to get most of the time, when I ask about education, is something along the lines of "Well, things have really changed since I was there (some number of years) ago."
And this is true, things have changed--and according to the author of this article, Mary Ellen Bates, things are still changing and need to change even further still.
As far as I can gather from the article (which, admittedly, is not a lot), Mz. Bates looks quite a great deal from the view of the potential employer of the person of the MLS or LIS or information- or library-related schools. It's something I suppose I had never considered, Librarianship as a competitive venture. That a degree in such programs could be used to look for jobs in fields outside libraries is something I had not thought of.
I suppose what Mz. Bates is looking at in her article is not to introduce the fact that this is a competitive field, for certainly any field of employment is. What she seems to be looking at is what is being "produced" through LIS programs, and whether these programs are producing people with skills that are "marketable," to libraries and otherwise.
As far as I can tell (and I hope I'm seeing this correctly), the author's beef is not with the "product" itself, really, but with the production process. What are LIS programs doing to market their graduates? Are theory and lessons in cataloging and so on as important a learning tool as hands-on experience? Mz. Bates brings up the fact that those looking to practice law, medicine and so forth are all required to have some kind of hands-on experience in their education. So is the lack of practical experience where LIS programs fail in producing marketable employees? I can't say I know a great deal about the job market for librarians or those graduated from LIS programs looking to work outside the library field, so I'm not certain exactly sure how Mz. Bates' argument for change in LIS programs stands. Is the job market a difficult operation for LIS graduates? Or is Mz. Bates simply precipitating a coming difficulty for LIS graduates?
Either way, should I be concerned right now?
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