Digital Library Education in Europe

Abstract

Research in digital libraries (DLs) has gained much interest across the globe. Most funding related to DL are available for building DLs, rather than producing digital librarians by developing the DL curricula and offering necessary funding to introduce state-of-the-art DL labs for future library professionals. Based on online surveys, this article investigates the status of DL education/courses in Europe, particularly, it examines the curriculum contents of DL courses, explores the future direction of library and information science (LIS) curricula, and identifies the competitors of LIS schools in the DL world. This study received responses from 54 LIS schools/departments in 27 European countries. The results of the current study clearly show that the majority of the LIS schools have already integrated digital librarianship in their regular bachelor's and master's degree programs. The importance of practical aspects in DL curricula has been highlighted by the authors. The study also reports the recommended books and journals on DL, direction of LIS curricula, and the competitors of LIS schools in the digital world. A number of future research directions have been offered by the authors. The authors expect that the study will contribute to the discussions and debates toward identifying subject elements for DL courses. The top subject areas based on their importance as reported by the participants of the current study should be taken into consideration before designing curricula for DLs and before developing a Europe-wide unique LIS curriculum.

An evaluation of digital library education in library and information science curriculum in Nigerian universities

“…Role of library schools in developing digital library skills of librarians The subject of digital libraries in LIS profession is receiving overwhelming attention at national and international levels (Tran and Do, 2014;Audunson and Shuva, 2016;Nguyen, 2017;Khan and Bhatti, 2017;Rafi et al, 2019;Baro et al, 2019). The demand for digital libraries and digital librarians is increasing (Baro, 2010;Rafi et al, 2019).…”

“…LIS educators who teach digital libraries course need knowledge and competencies not previously associated with library work (Bury and Jamieson, 2014) and traditional education programs have not prepared staff for it. This led to increase in digital library education in different countries as shown in several studies (Nguyen and Chowdhury, 2013;Myburgh and Tammaro, 2013;Audunson and Shuva, 2016). Baro (2010) surveyed digital library education in library schools in Africa.…”

Discovering the contextual factors for digital library education in Vietnam

“…Staff who work in DLs need knoweldge and compentieces not previousy associated with library work (Bury and Jamieson, 2014;Muhammad and Khalid, 2010) and traditional education programmes have not prepared staff for it. Recent research has shown globally the number of DLE programmes has increased (Nieuwenhuysen, 2011;Nguyen and Chowdhury, 2013;Myburgh and Tammaro, 2013;Audunson and Shuva, 2016) though none of these was in Vietnam. This research project sought to fill a gap not only in our knowledge of DLE in Vietnam but also to contribute to developments in this area that might be relevant to countries similar to Vietnam.…”

Course Analysis of Library and Information Science in Korea

“…A number of studies have been conducted to analyze the courses of LIS [10][11][12][13], and directions of library studies in accordance with the development of IT [14][15][16]. Wyman and Imamverdiyev analyzed similarities and differences in the LIS program from 1997 to 2017 [17].…”