habitually probing generalist

"My oh my, what ever shall we do?"

OK, I only heard this explicitly once at ALA Annual, and it is a paraphrasing, BUT I heard it implicitly in a few more instances.  Caveat:  I cannot speak for any LIS schools and can only speak about the one I attend.  But prior to going to ALA I read dozens of articles about LIS education, in this case, primarily about cataloging education, and a few about tech services in general.

It seems that the LIS schools are failing the practitioners.  Schools are not teaching us students what we need to know to succeed in our 1st jobs.  At least that is the opinion of many managers and library administrators.  I have to agree with this view as one who is currently in school.  I have the ‘luxury’ of understanding what constitutes a quality education and the general willpower, perseverance and time to take it.  I could say many things about library school education here, especially after some of the conversations I had with current students or recent graduates at ALA.  Many of us are disenchanted with the LIS education process so I know that it isn’t just my school.

And before someone decides that I am dissing my school in particular let me state that I most certainly am not!  I believe that I attend an excellent program with good classes and great people.  BUT, I do believe that LIS education as a whole is seriously failing the group that employs the product that they produce.  Higher education as a whole has failed by joining the consumerist mentality of the rest of our culture  And don’t bother wasting your time telling me that higher ed is or is not a business, that they must be consumerist to survive, that I am an idealist/elitist or something else.  These are all be separate, but yes, related,  issues.  None of them, in my opinion though, justify the failure of LIS schools to produce adequately prepared students.  Or at the very minimum, to make it easy on us as students to ensure that we are adequately prepared ourselves.

So, "what is to be done?"  That was the question asked explicitly at one committee meeting and implicitly at one program that I attended.  From what I’ve heard and seen since returning and while there still, it was asked in other venues also.

Being a fledgling cataloger wannabe, and being concerned about being adequately educated to become one worthy of the title "Cataloger," I attended the ALCTS CCS Committee on Education, Training, and Recruitment for Cataloging (CETRC) committee meeting.  This is where I explicitly heard the question, "What is to be done?" and a definite, "The LIS schools are failing us." 

Most of the discussion was about the current mentoring program and about continuing education.  This is important because the current crop of recent and new catalogers will have often been inadequately prepared and many of the catalogers who have been at it while have seen the world shift radically under their feet, not to mention the radical mental shift needed.  The short discussion about how to influence current or future students into considering cataloging as a career path, and of influencing their education while in school seemed to center on efforts with the SPECTRUM Initiative.   While I fully support this initiative, because librarianship is way too ‘white bread,’ this seemed rather odd.  Considering that we even need an initiative like this to increase underrepresented ethnic groups within librarianship in general, what is the point of focusing your efforts on that still very small group if the problem is not enough people period?

There was a comment that maybe they should start approaching the 50-some odd student ALA chapters.  Well, duh!  Especially since they are usually always looking for someone to speak to them.  What about putting together a brochure that helps those of us interested in cataloging to decide which courses to take?  Which ones are critical?  Which ones are secondary?  Which ones are most important if we want to do ‘traditional’ cataloging vs. which ones to consider if we want to do metadata (in the modern sense)?

It was interesting to hear about some of the recent continuing ed programs available for a year or 2 now through ALCTS.  These courses arose due to a needs assessment done ten years ago.  10 freakin’ years ago!  No wonder there’s an issue here people and it isn’t simply that the LIS schools are failing you—you are failing yourselves!

Another place I heard discussion about lack of preparation of students was at the ACRL Science and Technology Section (STS) program on The New Crossroads: Science Librarians in the 21st Century.

Seems that very few schools are offering sci-tech related courses and those that are rarely offer them every year.  For instance, our sci-tech reference course had to be cancelled last year due to unforeseeable events.  That is understandable because things do happen.  Well, the fact is that many students are doing their LIS programs in a ‘year.’  This means that a vast majority of students never get a chance to take such a course. 

Mary Case, University Librarian for UIC, opened and wrapped up this session.  She laid out some good stats to support the idea that the LIS schools are failing to help prepare future sci-tech librarians.  One bone of contention I had was that ‘sci-tech courses’ was never once explicated.  She made it seem as if students would just take these courses when they are offered, and if the schools would offer them, everthing would be fine.  But which courses are we specifically talking about? 

I, for one, am interested because my initial thoughts upon entering school was to become a sci-tech reference librarian.  So again, which courses am I supposed to be taking?  I know we sometimes have a general sci-tech reference course and also a medical reference course, but what else am I supposed to be looking for?  I have a good background in technology, philosophy of science and of technology, and a vast amount of reading in natural history and popular science, and it’s been a while but my biology is fairly good, but my hard sciences are a little weak.   If I change my mind about the cataloging then this is where I’ll be looking again.

Here’s my thoughts for the folks in the ALCTS Cataloging & Classification Section and ACRL Science & Technology Section (STS), both of which I belong to:

1  Continue what you are doing (as a minimum).  It seems you are thinking about the issues.  CSS keep at the preconference for next year and please accept ALISE’s offer to join you at the table.

2  Directly address the students. 

a  I don’t expect to be coddled but as the only student at the CETRC meeting (other than a major players grad assistant/helper) why was I let out of the room without being asked my thoughts, or to join the group, and so on.  I actually did have my hand raised during the discussion about how to work with current students but was never called on.  Feeling a little out of place I wasn’t going to jump up and down.

b  Contact the ALA student chapters and send people to talk to them face-to-face.

c  Get yourselves (a representative) to the NMRT Students Reception (Saturday night).  During that event representatives from groups within ALA, mostly sections, had 3-5 minutes to talk to students about their group, how to get involved with them, and to just show that they actually care about us.  Neither CSS nor STS was there by the way.

d Produce some sort of guidance for current (and potential) students to use in deciding which classes they should take, what skills they should be developing, what traits are important in your area, etc.  And do not take 10 years to do it!

e  Encourage student involvement in your divisions and sections.  Ensure that your division has a student rate (ACRL I’m talking to you!)(ALCTS, bless you for the $15 rate.  Cheap enough that I joined in the middle of my dues year.).  Is your section free or at least very cheap for students?  Do your have student interns on your committees? 

f-z  I have no doubt that if you step back from the mind numbing bureaucracy for a minute or two, or just ask a few of us students we can fill out the rest of these letters and more numbers.

I see so many engaged, involved, and interested students who want to get a good education, deserve to get an education, and need a little help.  Our schools are doing a good job.  Meanwhile they are failing us as they fail you.  ALA with its incessant efforts to recruit is failing you.  We don’t need more students in our schools.  That will fix nothing!  What we need are the subsections of the larger professional body to step up to the plate and to engage the schools, or at least the students, and help us all work together to be better students and future librarians.

Fixing the LIS schools is a much bigger issue.  I don’t see ‘one year’ programs going away; although I believe they never should have existed.  I’m not sure what can be done to increase the offerings of specific courses; although I believe that my school could use someone to teach sci-tech reference.  You don’t even need to be anywhere near UIUC thanks to our LEEP program.  As for again requiring specific foundation courses of everyone, well, higher ed will need to be fixed first.  A graduate education has simply become another consumer choice.  I don’t know what can change that attitude in our culture.  I have a hard time looking people I generally respect in the eye when they tell me that we have NO required foundational courses (yeah, yeah, except for the ridiculous 501/502) because the students demanded they not be required to take them.  Excuse me! In that case, I demand an A for just showing up.  I demand a 20-hour MS.  I demand a free education.  I demand….   Gets pretty stupid pretty quickly doesn’t it?  Well, it’s pretty stupid not to require library students to take a reference course, a cataloging course, a bibliography course, and a few more. 

Anyway, for the "My oh my, what ever shall we do?" among you out there (and unfortunately, if you’re reading this then I’m probably preaching to the choir) take a look at my above suggestions.  Contact me and I can put you in contact with some wonderfully intelligent future librarians with great ideas.  Approach us students.  We don’t bite, and for those of us that do, it’d be best if we did it as students than as your employees, wouldn’t it?

Last but not least, and lest anyone think I met no one at ALA Annual who cared about me as a student and future librarian, that is far from the truth.  I had several wonderful conversations with librarians who were very interested in me, my interests and motivations, and they did a great job representing their little corners of librarianship!  I just wish I could remember all of their names and locations.  To all of them I give a hearty "thank you."  You represented yourselves, your institutions, and your profession in the way that I aspire to—thank you for demonstrating how it can be done.