Mail List Discussion -- Open Discussion Period
Previous topic: "Varying Research Cultures"
Karen M. Drabenstott
Associate Professor
School of Information
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092 USA
Voice: (734) 763-3581
Fax: (734) 764-2475
karen.drabenstott@umich.edu
New topic -- "Open Discussion Period"
Many thanks to Bob Holley for leading our last discussion for 1996. We have exhausted our topics for the year and will now turn to three whole weeks of open discussion on new topics. I have only three topics scheduled for 1997 so please submit your topic suggestions to the CRISTAL-ED discussion for reactions and comments, or send them directly to me (karen.drabenstott@umich.edu).
I am quite concerned about our sparse schedule for the new year. Let's put our collective minds together and come up with some good suggestions in which you or other CRISTAL-ED members would be interested in volunteering to serve as guest editors.
Here is our schedule for the new year:
January 5-18
Kathleen Koontz, "Attracting Minority Students"
February 2-15
David Drummond, "Fitting Systems to Users"
February 16-March 1
Fred Milstein, "Redefining Reference Services"
Looking forward to your suggestions. Happy holidays to all!
Keith V. Trickey
Lecturer in Information Organisation
Liverpool Business School
Liverpool John Moores University
k.v.trickey@livjm.ac.uk
Open discussion - so lets go for wide open - looking at "where else and what else" -- where do our "core skills" -- if we know what they are -- fit in other Degree or Masters programmes. Not just literature searching or referencing for students about to undertake dissertations, or information orientation for new students -- but areas of application which are more integrated.
The focus to be on librarianship generic skills which fulfill a specialist niche in another programme.
So come on guys this a chance to look over the wall - and for those who have been working outside the "golden acre" to report back on what has been done, what works and what is valued by those outside our own particular trade.
Anne K. Abate
Doctoral Candidate
Nova Southeastern University
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
abate@scis.nova.edu
What about a session on library association. Where we belong ... why we belong ... what we expect to get out of it. We must all make choices about association as professionals. The educators among us might like some direction for their students. What about the future of the associations given their necessary dues increases? I would be happy to work up a short essay to get us started and lead the discussion if there seems to be interest in this topic.
Karen M. Drabenstott
Associate Professor
School of Information
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092 USA
Voice: (734) 763-3581
Fax: (734) 764-2475
karen.drabenstott@umich.edu
Some CRISTAL-ED members messaged me wondering why we haven't had any digests in recent weeks. MajorDomo, our list management software for the CRISTAL-ED electronic discussion group ended up with broken links from work done by our network folks doing reconfiguration of our servers. I had thought that holidays, food, and cheer must have been on our minds the last weeks of December because our "Open Topics" discussion generated few suggestions. But the silence was due to our malfunctioning list management software. We had a software problem once before when hackers broke into our entire system but we were only down for a few days and hardly anyone noticed.
We apologize for the CRISTAL-ED silence. We couldn't contact our membership because our the software configurations would not permit us to. We are hopeful that we will not encounter the same problem in the near future.
Because our list management software bounced back mail from many users we hardly got any suggestions during our last "Open Topics" discussion. So we felt it was best to postpone our scheduled topic on "Attracting Minority Students" until late winter. Since we have new no topics scheduled beyond March 1997, we need to focus on new topics for discussion. Before our software problem rudely interrupted our new topics discussion, suggestions on the table were "core skills" and "library associations." The latter piqued my interest; perhaps we could expand it into a more general discussion of associations -- what associations are relevant and useful, what do we join, why do we join, what do we get out of them. Please comment on these topics or suggest others that are on your mind.
Let's continue with our "Open Topics" discussion until Sunday, February 2, when we start a new discussion on "Fitting systems to users" hosted by David Drummond.
Anonymous
I'd like to see we discuss the role of accreditation in LIS education in the future. With some LIS programs undergoing structural as well as substantial changes, there is speculation that some LIS programs once transformed may not see accreditation as relevant to their mission at all.
Related to that is the bigger question of whether accreditation is a sufficient mechanism for quality control of individual credential for LIS professionals.
Patricia Dewdney
Associate Professor
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada N6G 1H1
Voice: (519) 679-2111 ext. 8506
Fax: (519) 661-3506
dewdney@julian.uwo.ca
I'm responding to the idea that Karen Drabenstott passed along about discussing accreditation.
Here at GSLIS we are very interested, since it's "our year." We are also merging with two other units, and developing a Faculty of Communications and Open Learning in which the MLIS program will, we hope, continue to be very strong. Furthermore, some of our doctoral students are studying the history of accreditation in a course on education for LIS. I can't volunteer to moderate the discussion, but I hope someone will!
Karen M. Drabenstott
Associate Professor
School of Information
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092 USA
Voice: (734) 763-3581
Fax: (734) 764-2475
karen.drabenstott@umich.edu
We have reached our second week of our news topics discussion. Two members have expressed their interest in a discussion on accreditation. We have no takers for a guest moderator for such a discussion. Are there any volunteers out there?
Are there other topics on your mind? Please suggest them now so that we can schedule guest moderators and discussions for mid March and beyond.
James H. Sweetland
School of Library and Information Science
University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee
Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53201
Voice: (414) 229-6840
Fax: (414) 229-4848
sweetlnd@csd.uwm.edu
RE accreditation:
In the last couple of weeks there has been a lot of discussion on the ALAOIF list on this, triggered by claims from the Family Friendly Libraries movement that ALA has forced its (presumably unacceptable) views on local communities. The reasoning is a bit tortured, but basically it goes--
ALA revised standards include a number of "social" issues, such as nondiscrimination;
Many libraries and states require master's degrees from an ALA accredited school;
Thus, communities are forced to accept people as librarians who do not (presumably) subscribe to traditional community values. AND
Colleges and universities who subscribe to traditional values cannot become ALA accredited.
I bring this up as relevant here, because it shows that there is a degree of interest in this subject outside the usual library/info sci education realm. In effect, FFL would appear to be placed to generate an attack on accreditation on free speech grounds.
Or, I agree with others on the list that we ought to discuss accreditation. Unfortunately, I lack the time to moderate the discussion. I would be happy to participate, though.
