Library/Information Science Education for the 21st Century: the Trømso Conference. Edited by Bendik Rugaas. New York: Neal‑Schuman, 1993. 155 p. ISBN 1‑55570‑148‑5. $35.00.
This is a paperback book, produced from a conference to initiate the new information science school at the University of Trømso in Norway. Chapter 7, by Hans Martin Fagerli, outlines the plans for the school. The school’s interest will be in the special library field. There Fagerli sees three areas: 1) the electronic library; 2) information literacy; and 3) resource‑based learning. He sees two needs—the need for library and information skills by the ordinary student, and the need for specialist and research skills to support the teaching. The remainder of the papers on library/information science education in Scandinavia are of a largely descriptive kind (but none the worse for that), but one has to conclude that in general, library/information science education is not very strong in the Scandinavian countries with the exception of Denmark, which has one of the largest schools in the world, and Norway perhaps itself.
In addition to the keynote address of Yves Courrier, the interest of the volume lies mainly in a series of papers by S. Michael Malinconico, Richard M. Dougherty, G. Edward Evans, Trevor Haywood, and Maurice Line. Courrier points out that the real value of information services in a university is seen in the budget allocation, and that the role of information has to be defined on the basis of university objectives, and not the other way about. In designing a curriculum, consultation needs to be wide, and the objectives clearly defined. Information services should be service‑oriented, technology must be subordinated to the services, and programmes must be geared to the employer.
Malinconico, in “The Implications for Curriculum Design in an Age of Technology,” points out that information and library services have changed more in the last 25 years than in the previous 350 years. Library education must anticipate change. Library automation has deprofessionalised cataloguing processes but there is need for greater skills in information retrieval. Communication systems have speeded up interloans, which have become ever more important. Collection development will have to be done on a basis of a “virtual collection.” Electronic information is making libraries less essential. All electronic services are increasing in rates from 25% to 60%. The growth of information will involve information systems dealing in “tens of thousands of billions of bytes.” Already much research is conducted through electronic means (bulletin boards, electronic journals, etc.). Much of the information will not be held locally but in vast electronic stores. Libraries are already being pressurised to provide electronic information through OPACs or to university residences (dormitories), or faculty studies or homes.
Dougherty, in “How Do We Get There From Here?” is even more brutal—for him, the age of library development as we have seen it is over. In some difficulty, libraries will have to reposition themselves against a background of being central to university culture. Librarians can no longer be collectors and preservers “of the scholarly record” (p. 41), and yet there is evidence of a lack of vision on the needed transition. He considers that though technology is making for great change, the pace will not be set by technology but by the ability to use and manage the new tools which are available. “It’s up to us.”
Evans, in “Elements for Consideration in Curriculum Design for Information Management,” asks the challenging question, “What is our business?”—and library and information science schools rarely state the business the school is in. He sees five major areas of interest: 1) creation and production of information; 2) use of information by people and machines; 3) acquisition, organization, and control of information; 4) storage and retrieval of information; and 5) management and marketing of information. He sees the basic constituents of the curriculum as communications, computer science, information science, and librarianship, and sees models “at the University of Toronto, Syracuse University, Rutgers University, Drexel, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Hawaii—Mona” (p. 68).
Haywood, in “Information Behavior of Researchers and Scholars,” considers bibliographical instruction as an essential, and then suggests the following elements: how to communicate with scholars and researchers, how to gain insight into the political process, a clear understanding of the information chain, data/information management for researchers, and introduction to research methodology.
Line, in “Aspects of Nordic Academic and Research Libraries,” states that libraries face three main problems: libraries cannot be funded to keep up with the increasing numbers of publications; some electronic formats are available to individuals and thus cut out libraries; thirdly, electronic information is virtually independent of national boundaries. Libraries in a global information system and a market economy, being pressed to greater effectiveness, require a flexible staff, well informed, who “own” their jobs. Swift and acceptable decision making is also required. Future librarians will need skills such as those required for book selection and reference services, but will also need information technology, information management, economics and accountancy, work design, marketing, negotiating skills, publicity and pu8blic relations and above all, he suggests, resource and staff management, with global thinking and a greater knowledge of the world. These are of course common to many other organizations and professions, yet there are special features of the scholarly world, “including publishing, bookselling, information provision, database construction, management, and hosting.” Combined courses with specialisations would be feasible (indeed already exist at Loughborough University, England, among others). Line proposes “a set of transferable skills, largely in or related to management, taught (or learnt) with special orientation to the book and information world, plus a few specialist skills.”
How does one react to this in the Third World—particularly in Africa, with South Africa coming on board, with a First World/Third World economy? First, we are not the main players, and the pace is being set by the United States, Europe, and Japan. Botswana is one of the foremost countries in Africa with regard to technology, but we are still a long way behind developed nations. Clear thinking is therefore absolutely essential to decide what we can take on board, and what we have to do without. All the electronic information in the world may be available, but what good is it to the peasant or the small entrepreneur or, even more starkly, for the small‑time worker in the “informal sector?” Some collections in Africa are very out of date, and one might expect electronic information to help them, but electronic information, when considered in the round, is not cheap. Some countries have small and recent collections (like Botswana), but should they wait for the benefits of the global library? African librarians have some difficult choices to make and have to build up traditional collections, at the same time finding resources for at least some of the CD‑ROM databases to increase their bibliographical coverage.
A question which the symposium does not touch is the market of the library and information science schools. We have seen the closure of American schools, and one wonders why. One of the reasons is that they have not rightly defined, as Evans suggests, what business we are in. We talk blithely about the private sector and information, but our market is still basically “librarians.” We are in need of a facelift to attract people from the private sector, industry and commerce, from banking, accountancy, railways, the police, the army, etc., etc. Currently, in Botswana we are going precisely through this stage, because we see that information is going well beyond libraries, and libraries, if they stay as they are in the Third World—certainly in Africa—will in time be no more, and we shall be without students—and without jobs. The department has already branched out into problems of information and strategic management in the public sector and the parastatals, and is looking to broaden its commitment to the private sector. Perhaps this should give those in Trømso some food for thought.
Peter Havard‑Williams is Professor and Head, Department of Library and Information Studies, University of Botswana, Gaborone. He has a Ph.D. from Loughborough University of Technology. He has been Librarian of the University of Otago; Librarian and Director of the School of Library and Information Studies, Queen’s University, Belfast; Dean of the Library School, Ottawa University; and founding Professor and Head, Department of Library and Information Studies, Loughborough. Dr. Harvard‑Williams has been a consultant for (inter alia) Unesco, the Commission of the European Communities, and the Council of Europe. He was Vice‑President of IFLA, and has held various offices in the Library Association. He is author of numerous reports and articles.
© 1993 Dominican University