And speaking of "extraneous" reading … I finally sat down last night after getting home around 9:15 PM and read the following which I printed several weeks ago:
Hsieh-Yee, Ingrid. "Cataloging and Metadata Education: A Proposal for Preparing Cataloging Professionals of the the 21st Century. A response to Action Item 5.1 of the "Bibliographic Control of Web Resources: A Library of Congress Action Plan."" ALCTS/ALISE Task Force, 2003. The web version, which I read, is available here as a PDF (468k).
Wow!
This is a very interesting report! The web version does not include the budget information, implementation details or appendices. I need to see if I can get my hands on a full copy of this report.
I have to say that I am highly impressed. But it is only a report, a recommendation, a proposal. What has happened since? All of the timelines for implementation are passed. So, again, what has happened as a result of this proposal? What has happened in graduate education that fits this report’s recommendations but were driven by "market forces"? Where are we now? Where are we going? I doubt that I’ve ever written so many question marks in the margins of a 40-ish page paper before!
This proposal goes to the heart of much of what I was talking and/or complaining about and suggesting in "Librarian education, or lack thereof" after ALA Annual 2005. Seeing as it involved a review of the literature on cataloging and metadata education it is also an excellent source for my bibliography.
While it covers lots of ground, its core is the set of objectives and specific knowledge and skills laid out in three levels. The competencies include those needed for expertise in cataloging and metadata and also leadership and management. The levels are Level I: Expertise for all LIS graduates, Level II: Expertise for metadata catalogers, and Level III: Expertise for leaders of cataloging and metadata projects.
I like what I see in this report, but the important thing at this point is to find out what happened with this proposal. Seems I need to do some investigative work now.
Maybe that’s why many of my fellow grad students don’t read "extraneous" stuff. It might lead one to actually and actively question. But isn’t that one definition of "learning"?
4 responses so far ↓
1 jenny // Feb 23, 2006 at 4:58 pm
Speaking from personal experience, most library students don’t read the literature because:
1. they could care less about the profession. they need a piece of paper to do the same job they are doing and get 10K more.
2. they are in library school because they have a humanities degree and nothing to do with it, and again do not care about the profession.
3. they have to stay in town and get paid and thus they are in library school and don’t care about the profession.
4. it isn’t apparent how the LIS literature is laid out. this may seem a bit more obvious to you, but through basically my whole academic/research career, i look for articles in databases. i have not really had to go to a library and look in individual journals. i think it’s pretty difficult to realize the trend in your research if all of the articles you look up come from all different magazines that you have never seen a paper copy of, or seen in “issue” format. It’s like an “mp3″ vs album idea.
5. Most of us do not care about library research. Sorry, a lot of library research is 1. way theoretical, 2. on very specific subject areas which you really don’t get into until you get a job, 3. totally non-applicable if you are not THE librarian at a library (i.e. you have no say as a grad assistant), or 4. fake science. Honestly, I can’t bother with ultra theoretical/philosophical articles. I don’t care. Any article written by someone who does not work in an actual library/information center/company that works with books or software is basically irrelevant to me. Perhaps this is reverse snobbery, but just because you have to write something to make tenure doesn’t mean I want to read it.
6. Most library students (in the UIUC incarnation) work 20+ hours a week and take 3.5-4 classes. Perhaps for you there is time in there for reading, but for most of us, even having time to read something for fun is difficult. True, it is about prioritizing, but if work and school combined take up 50+ hours a week of your life, you are not going to want to read about that stuff in your spare time.
7. No one requires it, encourages it, or even shows you how to find articles/journals that might be appealing. Honestly, the current awareness here kinda sucks, and isn’t directed at students. It’s difficult to do digitally and except for going to the LIS library once a month and bumbling about their in print copies, unless someone points out the major journals in your area of interest, you would be wasting your time.
8. More of us read blogs about LIS. A prominent, young, technical faculty member at UIUC asked me what podcasting was LAST MONTH. I think our faculty read traditional journals, but if you want to know up to date info about actual events, blogs are way more useful. I think a lot of new graduates are also looking outside of LIS into tech blogs as well, since academic journals haven’t really caught up. It’s also what
9. A lot of academic journals just seem to be the same argument over and over: technology good! no technology BAD! I already have an opinion and it’s always somewhere in the middle. I do not care to reread the same arguments with minor tweaks over and over again.
10. Perhaps I will refute this point by placing it here at number 10. I don’t like reading long things. Again perhaps this is just my MTV generation thing, but if you can’t say something in under 5 pages, it’s totally irrelevant to me. And I read way more than your average human, but still, boring technical articles? Do not care. This is why, when I go to meetings where people cry “we can’t put it online, then everyone will get lazy an there will be no true scholars.” Sorry, that’s already true. I am not reading something if I have to go physically somewhere and xerox it, let alone travelling 2000 miles to an archive. It basically doesn’t exist unless you cam deliver it to my house or office. This is why I choose to live across the street from a library and work in another.
I know there are some academics that this will never apply to, but for 90%+ of humans, we just don’t care that much. Sorry.
2 ...the thoughts are broken... // Feb 27, 2006 at 1:24 pm
LIS Graduate Education and Reading
Two recent posts addressed the ‘reading habits’ of LIS students (from my perspective, of course): Becoming a graduate student and Cataloging and Metadata Education. Jenny commented on both of them and Angel and Laura commented on the first. I think Jen…
3 ...the thoughts are broken... // May 18, 2006 at 10:04 pm
So much for desire
I have just finished my 1st month of Thesaurus Construction. There are 15 classes and thus one per week. Turned in my 1st assignment this evening too. It’s not due until noon-ish tomorrow but I need to go look at apartments tomorrow. My stupid mind. Re…
4 ...the thoughts are broken... // Jun 8, 2006 at 10:04 am
“Stop babbling!”
Hello World. It really does almost feel that way with my online community. Well, really with most anything except thesauring. Even work the last 2 weeks has been primarily thesauring, since my thesaur-o-mates and I were working on an integrated thesaur…