Entry 6 - The Ivory Tower as Preparation for the Trenches: The Relationship Between Library Education and Library Practice

Article by Robert P. Holley.
Original source: College & Research Libraries News 64 no3 172-5 Mr 2003 (web source here)

"Why can't library education and library practice get along better?" is the opening question of Robert Holley's article, a question that also opens the floor to addressing several issues within the library community. Mr. Holley's article I found positively reassuring after reading Mz. Bates' article. Though Mr. Holley does propose change in several areas of the field, he embraces also several "old world" practices (my terminology).

(If I could take an aside here: I find it kind of disturbing that both articles, regardless of stance, use the term "the L word" to refer to Libraries, or when talking of removal of the word from teaching establishments. Is this such an issue? I really had no idea.)

Mr. Holley, in his article, seeks to offer a "dual perspective"--and he really does deliver. He divides his article into three parts, concerning "program name, the curriculum, theory versus practice, and accreditation." The first matter on the agenda actually addresses my earlier aside about the removal of "L word" from program names. While Mr. Holley addresses the fact that the removal of the word "library" from program names and so forth could alienate some, as words like "information" are incredibly open to interpretation, he also can see the need for such a change; he reports that, in creating "information schools," closures of schools have decreased dramatically. Better to have the "L word" removed than the schools, I suppose.

The article's next point concerns the shaping of a curriculum for schools, and seems almost a direct attack on Mz. Bates' article on how programs should be programmed to make students more marketable. Bates a remarks that there is a rigidity already in library programs that is almost equivalent to what a lawyer might have to go through in his or her education. There is, of course, the recognition that the programs in a library school of thirty years ago would, of course, fail to meet the new technological and information standards of today, so of course programs would have to meet those standards.

The next section, "Theory versus Practice," flows right from the last section. Where Bates' article seemed to argue that graduates of LIS programs should have the kind of hands-on experience that would prepare to them to attack a first job readily, which seems almost an unrealistic expectation for me. Holley seems to argue that the first job out of a library program is really the kind of hands-on experience that librarians will get to prepare them for a career in the field, as students will prepare for a first job through theory, research methods courses, and so on. This I feel more inclined to agree with; it seems a more natural process.

The next section in Holley's article talks about the importance of accreditation in LIS programs--but I admit to not understanding, really, a word of it. What I believe I understand of accreditation is that a committee determines criteria shaped for a school's curriculum, this criteria determines what a student must have under their belt to be properly graduated--but that's about it. This is something I think I should definitely know more about.

Holley concludes his article talking about the fact that practice and education have more in common than they think they do, and wishes they (a kind of big "they," I don't suppose to know exactly who "they" are) would realize the congruence between the two. I agree with a great deal in this article--and not only because I'm most comfortable, at all times, in a more moderate position, but because these two aspects, education and practice, do make up one large whole, which seems kind of obvious.