Librarian or Information Professional?

The librarian vs information professional conundrum has always given me something to think about, but has only come to a crunch point once so far. Until now.

The first time names caused issue was whilst I was choosing my Masters course. The choice of ‘Librarianship’ against ‘Information Studies’ was something I quibbled about very briefly, before realising that the course content was far more important than the name. If I wanted a cool degree title that made people go “ooh” I would have studied Egyptology or Experimental Archaeology.

But now LinkedIn has come along and forced me to choose the sector I work in, providing me with two supposedly opposing camps: ‘Libraries’ and ‘Information Services’. This puts me in a quandary.

I like the libraries/librarian tag. I am very much aware that it is connected to a traditional stereotype, but that stereotype is also well known. I think that the best way to make people understand what we do is to take that image and update it. For me, using ‘information professional’ or ‘information services’ creates a whole new problem of defining what that is, leaving the stereotypical librarian to fend for itself. Alternatively, that attempted definition will come back around to the word ‘librarian’, creating a sense that the word might be taboo, as if the profession were trying to hide it. Neither of these situations help our cause. As long as that old-fashioned perception exists, people will not understand the sector’s work, no matter what we call ourselves. I realise that some feel librarianship no longer encompasses all that we do as professionals, making the title unfit regardless of any connotations it may or may not carry, but I still feel that it is the best way to crack down on what people think the profession is and does.

The librarian and information professional?

I should emphasise that I am not against the term ‘information professional’, in fact I am all for it. It explains that our roles transcend the physical library, and the work that we do is not only books, but information on a grand scale. However, might this be because I understand the importance of the sector and the work it does? We need to stamp out incorrect stereotypes before attempting a re-brand.  A bit like decorating – you need to remove any old wallpaper first and smooth the walls before applying a new finish, otherwise the old decor will still be visible underneath.

Then there are the views of others within the profession to consider. If I advertise myself within ‘information services’ will that  demonstrate me as a forward thinking professional, willing to challenge the boundaries of traditional perceptions? Or would ‘libraries’ better position me to connect with others, showing an appreciation of the profession’s core? Or maybe titles don’t matter at all? This was partly proved in research by myself and theatregrad presented at the New Professionals Conference earlier this year.

My LinkedIn sector currently displays ‘libraries’. I think I might stick with it for a while, until those library stereotypes are banished. Feel free to convince me otherwise though, I’m always open to change.

What Makes an Information ‘Professional’?

On Monday 20th June 2011,  Laura Williams and I myself presented the following slides at the CILIP CDG New Professionals Conference. If you have any questions regarding the presentation, please get in touch with us; our contact details are available on the final slide (Twitter or drop a line via the comments on our blog). We regret that you won’t get the full impact of our paper via the slides as many of our ideas and points were spoken, however you can take a look at some of what we said via posts by Rachel_s_b and PaleyLaura.

What Makes an Informational ‘Professional’?

View more presentations from Samuel Wiggins

Learning From Librarianship

I’d like to highlight a few differences between the core skills needed to complete my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Hopefully this will demonstrate the skills needed to keep up to date in the profession, and how a professional qualification can help. Keep in mind I’m new to the profession, I’d be keen to know what those with more experience think!

Prior to starting my MA, I studied history. The skills I learnt – essay writing, structuring and planning – have all been put to good use this year, as has my ability to chomp through journal articles and books. The primary difference has been the way in which I select resources.

Whilst studying for my BA, I rarely strayed away from JStor and the university library catalogue. The currency of articles and books that I referenced was only taken into consideration when trying to determine the historiography of the topic. A stark contrast to my MA; secondary literature is ‘old’ after several years as opposed to several decades. I now think very seriously about using an item from more than a few years ago, unless it is to illustrate how much things have changed. The difference between currency of information in the two professions came as a shock to me. It had always been important to ensure that you found the most up to date interpretation on a historical event, but if you didn’t agree with it, it was reasonable to backtrack to a previous argument, providing you sufficiently backed it up with relevant facts. In my experience, this is not the case with librarianship. For the most part, arguing against changes can be seen as regressive (with a few exceptions- libraries and politics mix A LOT and cause a lot of debate, making the use of alternative arguments more acceptable).

Despite this, there are still similarities between how librarianship and history are both practiced. Ranganathan’s principles still hold true, but have been evolved and incorporated with new disciplines and technology. Similarly, historical practice has evolved from the times of Von Ranke, but acknowledges where today’s practices stem from.

I’d like to highlight a few points arising from this comparison:

1)      Librarianship is exciting and fast paced. Keeping on top of emerging trends and technology can be difficult. It won’t do to simply follow advice from the 2000s. Make use of those current awareness skills, not just to help users, but also yourself.

2)      Librarianship is practical. The master’s course serves as a way to prepare you for a role as a professional librarian (keep an eye out for a presentation from myself and Laura at the NPC11 on what “professional” is). To be ready for this, you need to be as up to date as possible.

3)      A good librarian looks forward as well as at what is going on around them. By doing so it is possible to prepare yourself and the service provided to meet the constantly changing expectations of users.

4)      Don’t get lost among all the new ways of working – it is important to keep a handle on what makes a good librarian. Understanding the ethics surrounding the profession is still essential, whether you are dealing with users face to face or virtually.

Librarians? More interesting than campanology!

Why would someone study librarianship?

Recently I was thinking about the many things that we have been told regarding library advocacy and defending the profession in the public sphere (see my recent post on Defending Librarianship). I was trying to think of a clear and succinct response to the commonly phrased question that a good 99% of library school students have been asked, “isn’t that just about books?”. I couldn’t really come up with one, however…

I’ve decided recently to enhance my usual response of “No” (captial N necessary) by also explaining why I enjoy the course and detailing the things that I study in the hope of enlightening whoever asked the question. Whilst thinking about all the aspects of my modules that I like, as well as those that I’m less keen on but still appreciate the relevance of, I got thinking about Information in a very broad sense. I’ve realised that some of the bits that I enjoy the most in my course are not the ins and outs and minutae of the course that we learn, but rather the big picture stuff that these details allow you to fit together.

I’ve always enjoyed big picture stuff. It somehow seems kind of dream-like. Kicking back, staring at clouds and trying to fit everything together-esque. With the big picture (or maybe it should be The Big Picture?) there always seems to be a positive spin on things. Where projects seem impossible, zoom out and think about the issue as a whole, and often enthusiasm will return and hurdles are suddenly overcome.

Maybe librarians are the big picture? Image courtesy of ho_hokus on Flickr

I think all this is relevant when looking at Information. Often, especially towards the end of a library school term, too many details can start to grind you down. All the tiny caveats of topics can start to seem pointless, especially when Joe Bloggs fails to appreciate the relevance of it all other than learning the alphabet so that their books can be shelved in a rudamentary fashion. At times like this, looking at The Big Picture can remind oneself that without all these details, chaos would ensue. Finding things, both in a hardcopy and technological sense would be a nightmare. People would question why things are not where they want them and why their librarian/information specialist cannot find them. In addition to this, the details are interesting.  Maybe not to everyone, but then I found Chemistry dull (sorry Mr Jones, stories about your experiences with campanology failed to liven up lessons) and lots of people find that exciting (chemistry, not bell ringing). Information pervades every aspect of our lives, so what could be more relevant than studying how we manage its day to day challenges?! There are so many routes to information, ways to search for it, different forms to find it in. More people engage with library studies on a daily basis than they care to believe. Sorting your shopping when you get home? OK, its a bit of a stretch but its a degree of cataloguing. Can’t find that thing you want to buy on Amazon? That’ll be a problem with your search query, or a metadata issue.

So next time someone questions your choice of study or profession, tell them that A) it is arguably better than both chemistry and campanology combined and B) it is pretty damn interesting.

Defending Librarianship

Career development aids and advice on preparing for the future seem to be everywhere at the moment. The New Professional’s Conference has a theme of professionalism and activism, the SLA’s theme for this year is being ‘future ready’, and this afternoon our MA/MSc programme cohort had a talk from @Lyndsay2020 and @Kathyennis which rounded up a lot of what different channels have been saying and transformed it into an engaging and useful session. I thought I would blog a little of what was covered.

One point which really stuck with me from the session was something that echoed what @theREALwikiman mentioned in a talk that was delivered by himself, @LexRigby and Joel Kerry on behalf of CILIP’s Career Development Group the other week. This was the importance of not shying away from explaining what a librarian is and does.  Too often we dilute what we do, either using an alternative title, or comparing it to another, possibly more familar role.

The session today picked up on this and to illustrate the problem, we were asked to draw what we thought a librarian looked like (in an abstract sense) and annotate our creation, explaining the abilities we had given them. Unfortunately I don’t look have any pictures of our super-librarian, but we included suggestions along the lines of the ability to juggle numerous tasks and situations, and a hat stand with a variety of headwear symbolising the diverse roles librarians can find themselves in. One drawing also clutched a bear to symbolise the work librarians do with the young- thankfully it didn’t look like this though:

Thankfully Ive never met a librarian who looked like this! Image c/o stopthegears on Flickr

Lyndsay and Kathy then highlighted how many of the skills that we had illustrated in our librarians were transferrable to a number of professions, as were the skills that we had said we hoped to learn whilst on the course. This showed both how important it is to nail down just what makes a librarian important, and how difficult it can be. Along the same lines, if a group of librarians-in-training highlight abilities that can be seen as generic to a number of professions, who knows what users and clients think?!  To help remedy this we then focussed on drawing out abilities that could be used to defend a professional position within a firm and truly justify the role of a librarian or information professional. Some of the skills highlighted were as follows:

• Research abilities
• Collection management and development
• Community profiling
• Classification and cataloguing
• Use and control of metadata
• Thesaurus construction

It was stressed that skills such as those above should be differentiated from others such as time management and other general personal traits as whilst they are skills you pick up during a professional course, they are not what makes a librarian unique. The emphasis was on what is learnt as part of a librarianship qualification that cannot picked up on another course.

What I need to work on following the session is ensuring that I do not dumb down librarianship to people, something that it is all too easy to do when its been a long day and someone asks what it is that I’m studying. We must ensure that librarians take the credit  deserved in return for the training and effort invested in developing those core skills.

Another big thanks for @Kathyennis and @Lyndsay2020 for taking the session and raising the above points. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

PS. As a complete aside… I was going to entitle this ‘In defence of librarianship’ but it brought back too many memories of Richard Evans’ “In Defence of History’. A module I took as part of my undergrad in History called ‘Historical Argument and Practice’ made sure I didn’t want to discuss that book ever again. So I changed it.