Geoffrey
C. Bowker and P. Bryan Heidorn
Graduate School of Library and
Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Merri-Beth
Lavagnino
The University Library
University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
Mindy Basi
College of Education
University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Use of Hyperlinked Case Studies
in the Training of LIS
Professionals
GENERAL SESSION III: Technology and the New Information
Profession,
Friday, February 14, 1997, 10:45am - 11:30am
The Graduate School of Library and Information Science is currently faced with two major educational challenges:
- We are faced with the task of training students for a profession that is rapidly changing: as libraries become ever more digital, the range of tasks that face librarians is itself undergoing constant revision. Students frequently find that their expectation of what it is to be a librarian or information scientist accord poorly with the reality that faces them in their first jobs.
- We are delivering instruction in our Masters of Science program, on a trial basis, through a combination of on campus and on-line instruction (see http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/LEEP3/). Courses combine relatively brief periods of on-campus instruction with independent learning and instruction using a variety of new information technologies including groupware. This allows citizens of Illinois who are place-bound or can't get away from work for regular classes to have access to the University's educational resources.
In this paper, we discuss the use of hypermedia case studies in the provision of library and information science courses. We have applied lessons from the ethnographers of information systems. In particular, we have examined the work of Etienne Wenger, Jean Lave and Ed Hutchins on situated learning and legitimate peripheral participation. We review recent social informatics literature about the nature of IS work in the field (as opposed to its representation in traditional textbooks). We then show how we have encoded these lessons in the form and content of our case study of the changeover in Illinois libraries to the DRA system. We conclude that a wide-scale case study approach furnishes an educational environment that is at once suited to the Web and to the subject matter being covered.
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