Now we turn to a discussion on specialist education led by guest editor Mr. James Shedlock. Jim is currently the director of the Galter Health Sciences Library at Northwestern University in Chicago and a member of the Board of Directors of the Medical Library Association (MLA). He received a BA from the University of Notre Dame in 1974 and the AMLS degree from the University of Michigan in 1977. He has spent his entire career in health sciences librarianship, starting as a reference-serials librarian at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Pontiac, Michigan, and continuing in academic positions at Wayne State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Northwestern University. Jim has published various articles and opinion pieces, delivered papers and presented posters related to issues relevant to health sciences librarianship and the library profession in general. Active in the Medical Library Association, Jim has served in a number of posts including leadership in MLA sections, committee chairmanships and now on the Board of Directors. Jim has been certified as a medical librarian by the MLA since 1977 and is now a distinguished member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals. He most recently served as a project manager for the Galter Library's $10 million renovation and expansion project.
Please welcome Jim Shedlock as our guest editor on specialist education and join the discussion.
I propose to the CRISTAL-ED readership a discussion on specialist education for library and information service. Based on my experience, I am particularly interested in discussing preparations for careers in the health sciences environment, but the discussion should not be limited to this one area. Preparation for work in the legal, business, and other special library/information centers should be discussed as well.
WHY THIS TOPIC?
The topic itself has been inspired by the fine discussions already held on CRISTAL-ED and by the inauguration of the CRISTAL-ED LISTSERV. The general topic of education for library science brings to mind the issue of preparation for careers in specific environments. The old education model, especially the one I followed at the University of Michigan's old School of Library Science, offered the basic library science curriculum as well as many opportunities for students to choose a specialty while preparing for their future careers (and specialty here is broadly used to reflect career choice in not just environment but in function as well,i.e., a career in cataloging in an academic library versus a career in readers' services in a large public library). Is this model relevant anymore? Is it better for the library/information science curriculum to be only a strong general one? The value of a strong generalist curriculum is not questioned. Some of the advances made in Michigan's new School of Information are on the mark (in my opinion) and provide true leadership in the way the library profession should be changing for its own good.
The concern relates to wondering if new professionals are prepared to take on the demands of their new environment. I do not mean whether they can get jobs working in libraries/information centers. I mean whether they have the skills specific to the demands of the environment. The culture of health care and the culture of law are very different. Besides different information resources, there are different standards, different terminology, and different external pressures that impact on how information workers provide relevant services and products.
The question is ...
Do we educate generalists and let the environment be taught on the job, or do our schools of information studies have a responsibility to educate for the context in which information is generated and used and preserved?
Is there value in educating students about the specific environments like health care, law, business, fine arts, music, etc., in which they want to work?
Is specialist education too narrow for today's educational environment?
Is specialist education relevant in a future world where technology seems to be the preferred means of communicating?
Will employers expect to find information specialists to serve in their libraries and information centers, to find graduates/new professionals who can "start the job running?"
Will library/information science education be replaced by specialist education? For example, will new master's programs in informatics be the degree of choice in the health care industry?
Is the issue of specialist education best handled as a post-degree experience, a combination of work experience, formal courses and continuing education to achieve specialist status with a certificate? Will the market support this concept?
I propose that for the first week we here from the educators about the pros and cons of generalist versus specialist education in library/information science. (If this topic has been "argued" before in educators' associations, please be patient and summarize the latest thinking on this topic). During the second week, we should encourage library directors, librarians, alumni and others to discuss their views on specialist education. From these discussions we can see if any consensus results.
Thank you for your interest in this topic.
I suggest that public reference librarianship also be considered a specialty, the difficulty being that the required knowledge is not extraordinarily deep, but extraordinarily broad.
The MLS was created at a time when universities were developing majors. These majors have, over the past century, become increasingly narrow at the same time that the universe of knowledge has become increasingly wide.
It is important to remember that a major not only defines the area in which one has subject competence, but also defines the areas in which one has subject ignorance.
We no longer have a situation where the general university graduate can be considered competent to understand the general run of public questions. This understanding must be developed before the budding reference librarian is allowed to conduct a reference interview.
This might be thought of as an expanded sense of "cultural literacy" (to use E.D. Hirsch's phrase -- and who agrees with the problem). To cast back into our profession's history, this can be considered an example of the training in "social epistemology" advocated by Jesse Shera.
I think that special librarians in particular need a broader education in order to better serve their clientele. The broad background that I have had allows me to not only answer questions on legal research topics, but also in a wide variety of other areas. While I have been known to say "a book is a book and an index is an index," there is something to be said for background or training in a specialized area. But this would take away from us the cross-fertilization that has always made libraries so interesting. And we must face the fact that the job market is bound to change throughout the long careers we all have. I would much rather be able to call myself a librarian who happens to currently work in the legal environment than a law librarian.
There is nothing missing in the service I provide to my patrons, even though I have never taken a course in law librarianship. Most of what I know in the area has been learned on the job, at conferences, and through reading (tons!). The specialized training that we need in any job can be gained through this type of lifelong or continuing education. The knowledge and skills we need to perform any job should not be available through one degree program, but gained over many years. That is, after all, what makes us more valuable to our employers.
This is a great topic. I could go on all night, but that would leave you all sleeping. Would anyone like to disagree with me now?
(So ... let's start a little controversy. Maybe this topic represents AGAIN the library science faculty's lack of interest in the opinions of practitioners. Teachers have all the answers, and people out in the field should just follow their lead; after all, that's how the practitioners got their jobs. Is this the case on the topic of specialist education? It seems to me the existence of CRISTAL-ED contradicts this notion, for it represents a very active forum for exchanging views among teaching faculty and practitioners! So what's the deal then?)
After quickly reviewing the program description at the University of Michigan School of Information, it seems there is one place that offers hope for the future of specialist education. In a number of places, Michigan's program recognizes the role of specializations toward the earning of a professional degree, a master's degree in information. Not only are the old specializations there (school, academic, special library), but new ones, oriented toward future demands, are there as well. Good show for Michigan! I urge all readers to refer candidates interested in the old and new library/information profession to apply to Michigan's program; even saving tons of money for out-of-state tuition and living expenses and living away from family and friends will be worth it for the year or so it takes to complete the program! No other program will match the excitement and opportunity or be worth your tuition investment!
Given that the one program will train information specialists, what should the practitioners expect from the program? What should your future colleagues know when they enter the profession?
As a library director, I will be looking for Michigan grads that took a specialization and can relate their knowledge to the health care environment. If they took a librarian track, I would expect from their core courses a basic understanding of the information generating process in the health sciences and a basic recognition of major information resources in the health sciences (in all information formats -- print, electronic, media). (If they don't take specific course on health sciences information resources, I expect them to show me how they chose to study the health sciences range on their own). If they chose another specialty, I would expect them to demonstrate how their specialty education applies to the health sciences. For example, if they have a specialization in the human-computer interface, how did they address the major issues facing information access, organization and retrieval in their course work (including practicums or other field work) in relation to the health sciences? What do they know about medical information systems, and how does this relate to access, preservation, information delivery, etc.? I want someone who can start a job running. I don't expect a grad to know everything about the health care environment, but they should know enough to start running and start contributing to the success of the unit (i.e., the library, library department or information center).
What do other directors want from graduates?
What would practitioners do differently if they had the chance to relive their educational experiences?
For any educators fired up to add to the discussion, how will programs address the continuing education needs of practitioners in special environments?
(And BTW, how about changing this $%#! terminology?! What environment is NOT special to a practitioner that's in it?!)
For the health sciences readers, do you think the programs in informatics are a better alternative to old or new library science programs? (See http://WWW-SMI.Stanford.EDU/smi/academics/).
We heard from practitioners promoting the generalist side of library education, necessary for users services in public libraries, school and law environments. What do specialist practitioners think about their specializations? (From my perspective, the old Michigan program gave me what I wanted -- I went into Michigan's program because it was the best, or close to the best, program for medical librarians, and close to home and inexpensive. I got it all! From day one on the job in a hospital library, I knew I was ready and running!).
I look forward to reading more about specialist education for the health sciences, for law, for business, etc.
Thanks.
However, many fellow students working in both school and special libraries expressed dismay at a general education that too often did not address the situations and difficulties that they faced. Trying to fulfill all of their specialized needs in a single course was often either overwhelming or frustrating for them, despite the best efforts of the instructor. Since becoming a school librarian requires that you are first a teacher with a teaching degree, most of those students had no interest in exploring options in other branches of the field, or in spending valuable time on coursework that they would likely never use. Obviously, some balance is needed between offerings of general and specialized education.
Anne Abate makes another good point about changing jobs and librarian roles. What this highlights is the need for good continuous education programs for those who already have master's degrees. An ongoing debate is who should provide this education. Should the library schools relax degree program requirements to allow the taking of classes by non-degree track students? Should professional organizations work to create more structure to existing continuing education offerings? But that is another topic.
Jim Shedlock asks why more library and information educators have not responded to this question. How many of them are actually subscribed to this list? Do we know? We cannot say that they are not listening if they have not had the opportunity to hear. And expecting a new graduate to be able to "hit the ground running" may not be a realistic expectation. There is too much to learn that you only learn by doing. In the early days, librarians learned through apprenticeship. Are we in too much of a hurry in today's world to allow people time to grow? I have been a supervisor for many years and understand how much easier it is when someone comes into a job with the skills necessary to do the tasks at hand with only a little training. But how often does that happen in any job? What I look for most is someone with an attitude that is workable: eager to learn, people-oriented, computer literate, with a basic understanding of what goes on in a library. If they have those things, I can teach them the rest.
What is the basic attitude we want from librarians? How about someone who has demonstrated continued learning, with good inter-personal skills, with experience in automated systems and the Internet, and who has a broad knowledge base of library terminology and practices? And how do they learn all the rest? Either we have to get very specific in our preparatory coursework (by extending the program another year? by encouraging different schools to specialize in different areas?), or we require internships and/or work experience for the degree (a point I've made before), or we allow for some kind of on-the-job training and/or apprenticeship.
Would I want to go back and change my educational experiences? If any of us had a chance to redo some part of our life, would we take that opportunity? The choices we made in the past, and the experiences we had, helped make us who we are today. No, I would not change it.
Like Jim Shedlock, I would like to hear from other special librarians (including museum librarians and information brokers). Unfortunately, many of them work for small libraries that either don't yet have Internet access, or are so short-staffed as to not allow them much time for participation in lengthy discussions. Of course, I recognize that none of us really has the time, but this kind of intellectual stimulation is an essential part of maintaining that basic attitude that makes librarians "workable." Maybe looking at how to get more librarians involved in the discussion is an undercurrent to all of our discussions.
But a beginner is not only confronted with the difficult task to assess future requirements; at the same time, the candidate must also gain an overview of the different existing venues through which he might aspire to grasp the essential procedures and skills needed for a promising start in the profession. Only if he knows the different access paths and only after considering the related pros and cons, the candidate is able to make a reasonable choice.
Who aims to prepare beginners for a LIS career start is responsible for the implementation of successful educational programs. Within this context, Jim Shedlock raised some fine questions which I condensed into four main points open to debate:
A generalist basic LIS education has the advantage that the candidate can apply for a broad range of professional opportunities. A strong generalist curriculum proves to be efficient if it focuses on fundamentals. A LIS school has to acquire an own profile of subjects and teaching methods through which the school distinguishes itself from other institutions.
An LIS curriculum integrating generalist education and specialty options is a first way to get specialist education: If the school or faculty can assure up-to-date elective courses, eventually in cooperation with other institutions, in order to provide competent specialized tuition, the enrichment of the educational options will be welcome to the target audience.
A second possibility is a generalist LIS curriculum plus specialized post-degree training on the job : In the case that a LIS graduate has not yet been prepared for the chosen specialty, a tutored post-degree training on the job can ensure the entrance into the profession. The nature of the occupation decides to which extend it is necessary to know particulars of the specialist context. Preferably, a professional association in the field of specialization should raise standards of education and training.
I intend here an education in a non-LIS branch such as humanities, science and law as a first step. After graduation, the candidate has two options for his further educational program:
We can observe that applicants with a strong informatics background, we may call them "computer specialists turned information professionals," have an advantage: These competitors, if they can prove that they have successfully realized projects in the informatics field, often get a vacant position linked to new information technologies.
I think that a sound education and training in applied informatics is not an elective but an essential part of education within a future-oriented generalist LIS curriculum. Because generations of LIS professionals did not have the opportunity to get a solid education in applied informatics, this topic has to be put also on the agenda for continuing education.
For the majority of novices which later want to work in a specialist area, the generalist LIS curriculum will probably represent the mainstream initial education in the next coming years. For other neophytes, the educational alternatives will be appropriate paths.
Newcomers within the information profession world will soon become aware that conscious career development and continuing education are of paramount importance.
We mentioned generalist and postgraduate curricular education; together with training on the job and continuing education, they all have their place within the domain of professional formation. These different types of education give themselves mutual support. In the present as well as in the future, a proper balance should be reached between them.
I advocated specialist education 18 years ago when my article, "The Two-Year Master's: Perspectives and Prospects," was published in Journal of Education for Librarianship (Spring 1978): 324-335. I am personally in favor of specialization, because in the field I teach, "Organization of Information" (including cataloging, authority control, subject analysis, etc.), it is absolutely necessary for a student to have had at least three courses in order to be truly prepared for a supervisory cataloging job (seemingly just about the only kind of cataloging job left) or for a job as a metadata specialist. I also believe that not everyone needs to specialize. There are places for generalists in our field. I believed in 1978, and still do, that in order to provide specialist education successfully a school must have a 2-year program, the second year of which is devoted to specialization. Since then a few schools have implemented longer programs, but most have not. I think this may be due to budgetary realities, which seem to be worse now than at any time in the past 18 years. At our school the tuition is quite high. In-state tuition is equivalent to out-of-state tuition in some other places, and out-of-state tuition for us is more than twice the in-state tuition. Therefore, a two-year program would translate to fewer students which would translate to a drop in budget allowed by the University, which would mean further loss of faculty positions (we are down four in the last four years), etc.
One reason that I believe a specialist education requires a two-year program is that so many students do not know at the beginning what they want to do in libraries. After taking core courses many change their minds about what they thought they wanted. By year two, they know, but most of our students have graduated by then! Many students are disappointed that they can't take everything they want in just a year, but they also say that they could not afford a longer program. Jim Shedlock mentioned Michigan's new program having specializations. I have not had the opportunity to look at it, but I will be interested to see how they do this within a one-year program.
In spite of this we do have some specializations: school librarianship and archives, for example. People who specialize in these areas have to know at the outset that this is what they are doing, because they have to go in lock-step through the program with all but one course or so prescribed. They also have to start in the fall. We also have areas in which students can take one or two specialized courses: law librarianship, and organization of information, for example; and we have just begun a cooperative venture with medical informatics. In organization of information students can specialize by taking the basic course in the fall and two advanced courses in the spring. If they start in the spring or do not take the basic course until spring, they can't take the advanced courses until the next spring. Full time students will have graduated by then.
These thoughts are mostly a review of the realities in most schools that make specialist education difficult. Ideally, we would all have lots of money (e.g., grants from Kellogg) to make the best of all worlds happen.
I think it appropriate to apologize again for making some assumptions about who is reading this list. I thought that this list was followed by many LIS faculty as well as by practitioners. In an exchange with Karen, this assumption may be wrong; the majority of CRISTAL-ED readers appear to be practitioners or followers of the LIS issues. Well, faculty can't respond if they're not participating. Also, I thought more directors, responsible for hiring new LIS graduates, would have participated in the discussion, and that seems not to have happened either.
So ... what did we get from this discussion? For me, it opened my eyes to pay more attention to the audience of the list! Besides that, the contributors helped broaden the discussion by bringing to light their approaches to the specialist education that they received. The consensus among the contributors seems to be strong support for the concept of a very good generalist education with specialist education coming on the (first) job or through continuing education.
In my opinion, the consensus is a good one, though it does not reflect my personal experience nor does it address very well the hiring situation in the health sciences. Depending on the vacant position, I think most health sciences library directors are looking for candidates who have knowledge of the health sciences environment. For entry-level positions, this means an expectation that candidates are acquiring their knowledge in courses, augmented by their personal interest to explore the health sciences environment in more detail during course assignments, projects or internships. For mid-level and senior management, I think HS library directors tend to hire other HS library professionals; it is not often that someone from outside the environment is brought into it. However, it does happen; I know of some very fine examples where non-librarians are hired and are quite successful in performing professional services in a HS environment. They are successfully learning/receiving their specialist education on the job!
This point of learning on the job as an apprenticeship in a manner similar to the Swiss model is intriguing and needs to be considered in more detail. It is this concept that got me thinking about the future of hs librarianship and where new recruits were coming from, for fear the schools were abandoning specialist education. This fear is really unfounded when one starts to explore school catalogs/web pages and see it confirmed that specialist education is not dead. Again, the program at Michigan comes to mind, and I'm sure there are other successful hs specialty courses offered at Pitt, South Carolina, Missouri, and more.
I think specialist education brings out the importance and value of the generalist curriculum. Specialty education needs to build on a foundation. I think it safe to conclude that specialist education is still a concern and an issue to be addressed in the future as LIS programs change to meet the demands of the profession.
Thanks again to all who participated in the discussion, and I hope many readers were stimulated to think more about the value of LIS education in general and its specialties.
The NetLinkS project is very pleased to announce the arrival on the scene of nls-forum -- a new discussion list on networked learner support (NLS) in higher education. The list is aimed at anyone involved or interested in NLS - the use of networked technologies to provide training or other support to users of electronic information resources. We expect nls-forum to be of particular interest to library and information staff involved in user education, information skills training or enquiry/reference work, but it's also aimed at people working in IT support, open/distance learning using networked approaches, teaching/learning support and anyone else interested in learner support in the networked environment.
Over the past year, NetLinkS has been gathering information about a wide range of NLS ideas and initiatives, and about the strategic and implementation issues involved. Many people we met along the way have said they would welcome the opportunity to make contact with others involved in this kind of activity - so we think nls-forum should become a lively, informal place for exchange of ideas, information and debate!
We'll also be using the list to keep people informed about NetLinkS project activities and events. Over the next 20 months, we'll be developing a resource base, a series of interactive on-line events, and an on-line course - all via the WWW-based "learning community" site which is currently under construction. We're in the process of up-dating our Web site and will be putting lots of resources on-line in the near future, so we hope you'll want to make a visit:
HOW TO JOIN NLS-FORUM:
To subscribe, send the following message:
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You'll also find subscription information at the list's mailbase site at:
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Finally, can I extend a warm invitation to you to join nls-forum - we hope it'll be a useful and enjoyable list, and your contribution will be very welcome.
Good SLIS education had classwork that provoked profound reflection on the nature of the information need, and this often benefited from a generalist's stance (how do I find out about something that I know almost nothing about?) At Berkeley, questions attained sudden insights when the students came from so many different specialization areas. It helped immensely when a reference class, for example, had people from law, medical, academic and public library backgrounds, since a variety of potential strategies could emerge to deal with the theoretical information need. Good exposure to generalist questions often drove students back into themselves to examine the origin of how information needs are stated by people everywhere, and the variety of forms that such needs are stated. The sense from many of those I spoke with was that a generalist's flexibility in thinking was an asset for any information situation.
On the other hand, specialization was increasingly important for people to do their jobs. Depending on your user base, whoever you are serving, your knowledge of the subject area cannot usually be superficial. A large number of my class at Berkeley had second master's degrees (two in my class had Ph.Ds.) and this trend is likely to continue, not just in academic libraries but in many special "non-traditional" settings. From Arlene Taylor's comments at the University of Pittsburgh, I would think it very difficult to fashion a one-year SLIS program that could furnish both sides of the equation, and this doubtless represents a challenge to all slis programs. I think for increasing numbers of slis graduates, both generalist and specialist qualities are essential.
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