Continuity, Culture, Competition: The Future of Library and Information Studies Education? Proceedings of the 4th British Nordic Conference on Library and Information Studies, 21‐23 March, Dublin, Ireland

Citation

Intner, S.S. (2003), "Continuity, Culture, Competition: The Future of Library and Information Studies Education? Proceedings of the 4th British Nordic Conference on Library and Information Studies, 21‐23 March, Dublin, Ireland", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 59 No. 2, pp. 229-232. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410310463554

Library catalogers will be perturbed by the fact that this book lacks a proper title page containing standard bibliographic information, although plenty of information is given on the cover, introductory pages and other parts of the book. Proceedings usually are difficult to catalog and present atypical access problems, so the missing title page is simply one more inconvenience in an already inconvenient type of publication. As a reviewer, I also expected to find a title page and hunted a while before giving up and going elsewhere for the information needed to construct a citation.

Other physical aspects of the book that bear mention (normally, I would discuss these at the end of the review, but since I have begun with the absent title page, it seems logical to cover the rest), are as follows:

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  Lack of an index. This is mitigated only slightly by the presence of keywords for each paper printed at the beginning of the book and on the first page of each paper; nothing brings even these few keywords together in one list.

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  Height of the spine. An unusual 30 centimeters – which will make it hard to shelve, at least on standard shelves in US libraries.

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  Appearance of the print. The print is formatted in two‐columns on the page, which is not as pleasant or easy to read as print formatted without columns.

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  Narrow inner margins. Both left and right margins are 3 centimeters; it looks fine for the outer edges, but not for the gutters, which may be too narrow for comfort if they are trimmed while being rebound.

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  Inability of the book to lie flat for copying.

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  Paper. The publisher should have printed the book on pH neutral paper and may have done so, but I did not find the little infinity symbol that indicates it.

As a North American library educator, the contents of this volume beckoned because its topic seemed to speak directly to my interests and needs. Reading the various papers, however, I realized that my perspective differs from that of many of the authors. For this reason, I beg the reader's indulgence. I ask them to understand that the opinions expressed in this review are necessarily colored by my individual perspective, which, I imagine, might be shared by other North Americans but not necessarily by colleagues located in the UK, Scandinavia and the rest of Europe.

The first issue with which I struggled was raised by the question mark at the end of the subtitle – it was disquieting to see it and to realize the implication that European colleagues are not sure library and information studies education has a future. However, given the fact that a large number of library schools in North America have closed over the last 30 years, it is not a strange notion to consider. Indeed, although the remaining (should one say “surviving”?) North American programs seem to be thriving, their future existence cannot all be guaranteed. It is as legitimate to ask if LIS education has a future as it is to make predictions about it.

The volume is a long one, containing 29 papers and a closing conference review. The main text opens with a set of abstracts and keywords for each paper, providing a valuable finding aid far better than the table of contents for readers who prefer to read the volume non‐sequentially, wanting to skip around, selecting papers based on their topics. Most of the abstracts are approximately 150 words in length and give good descriptions. Combined with the keywords, one can readily discern the contents of each paper.

The titles and principal authors are as follows: “On continuity, culture, competition‐cooperation and convergence, too,” by Peter Enser; “Potential for success: demands on the Swedish information workforce,” by Birgitta Olander; “Educating information professionals in a multicultural information society,” by Kerstin Jorna; “Information management in the Baltic, Nordic and British LIS schools,” by Elena Maceviciute; “LIS meets the EIP,” by Jetta Hyldegarde et al.; “New information management opportunities in a changing world,” by Charlotte Breen et al.; “The status of information society studies in the information science curriculum,” by Alistair S. Duff; “Mapping the curriculum in information studies,” by T.D. Wilson; “Libraries and society – the macrostructural aspect of library and information studies,” by Magnus Torstensson; “Skills expectations of library graduates,” by Michael Middleton; “Corporate information, institutional culture and knowledge management: a UK university library perspective,” by Damien McManus et al.; “Measuring students’ performance and perceptions: empirical studies in different dimensions of quality assurance at a library school,” by Niels Ole Pors; “Adding value to learning through cultural change: the Northumbrian experience,” by Margaret Watson et al.; “How much law should librarians know?” by Justin Arundale; “Rhetoric and realism: young user reactions on the Linkoping fire and its consequences for education and democracy,” by Maj Klasson; “Can librarians help to overcome the social barriers to access?” by Barbara Hull; “Information and library studies on a virtual campus,” by Rita Marcella et al.; “Lifelong learning and empowerment: a model in practice,” by Catherine Hare et al.; “Motivating mid‐career LIS professionals: the Aberystwyth experience,” by Judith Broady‐Preston et al.; “Cross‐country partnerships in European library and information science: education at the crossroads,” by Leif Kajberg; “Health informatics education‐working across the professional boundaries,” by Andrew Pearson et al.; “Social aspects of professional nurses’ information seeking and use: initial findings,” by Olof Sundin; “Electronic journals: managing and educating for a changing culture in academic libraries,” by Linda Ashcroft et al.; “Information control in the virtual office: preparing intermediaries to facilitate information exchange in the home work environment,” by Crystal Fulton; “Discovering the information professional: organisational culture in a digital world,” by Hugh Preston et al.; “Integrating records and archives management with information studies in Poland,” by Maija‐Leena Huotari et al.; “Preservation management training and education: developing a sector‐wide approach,” by Graham Matthews et al.; “Educating LIS students in cultural history,” by Niels D. Lund; “The attributes of information as an asset,” by Charles Oppenheim et al.; and “Conference review,” by Mary A. Burke.

The keynote address asks librarians to move away from texts (presumably meaning printed texts, not textual material in other formats) and libraries as physical locations, and toward the digital world. Using the words in the conference title as keywords, the author suggests LIS education should not continue in its traditional path, but change to match the new digital culture, and collaborate, not compete, with colleagues in computer science, who constitute the most relevant cognate field. The challenge is met by authors of the other papers at varying levels of detail, from the very specific (e.g. developing a course on information portals) to the moderately specific (e.g. investigating changes in information work in a high‐tech organization), to the more general (e.g. initiating a distance learning degree program). Many issues familiar to North American LIS educators are covered, such as multiculturalism, desired skill sets, evaluation of teaching and learning, navigation of the electronic environment for teaching, learning, and job‐hunting, and new topics in the curriculum. A number of papers report on empirical studies – some large (e.g. Olander, Pors), but most small (e.g. Breen et al., McManus et al., Sundin, Fulton). Some are single‐case case studies which, while they may be interesting, do not provide findings that can be generalized to other cases. However, even these papers are not without value because they may alert astute observers to processes unfolding in the described case that help them interpret their own observations.

The writing is generally clear, although the vocabulary is sometimes less familiar to this reviewer, e.g. the use of the term “documentation” for “materials,” “macrolevel role” for “society‐wide role,” etc. The quality of the text is very high, although the reviewer cannot be certain how much is the result of Ms Ashcroft's effort and how much should be attributed to the excellence of the authors’ submissions. No matter, the credit goes to the editor, who is directly responsible for the whole volume.

This book is an important addition to the professional bookshelves of all schools offering LIS programs, no matter where they are located. As a North American, there is much food for thought here, despite the differences in approach to similar topics here in the USA, and the same is likely to be true for LIS educators in the rest of the world. In particular, I want to consider and investigate the differences, and try to determine whether they are solely differences in our frames of reference (attributable to cultural differences) or differences indicating lack of knowledge or understanding that should be addressed. It behoves every serious LIS educator to scan through it, and spend more time reading the chapters that speak to their individual interests.

For European LIS educators, it should be a must‐read, with special attention to those subjects likely to have an impact on one's own working environment. Despite the physical drawbacks of the book, its contents are important to those of us with a stake in the education of information professionals and the book is, therefore, recommended.