Preparation for Academic Librarianship: A Survey

Abstract

t is commonly agreed that the responsibility for educating entry-level academic librarians is shared by three groups: library schools, hiring institutions, and the librarians themselves. Despite general consensus that each of these groups share responsibility for the educational process, the specific nature of their respective roles is vigorously debated.The library education debate in both the literature and at professional meetings has focused on the following questions : Should the curricula of library schools emphasize theory or practice, or, should both be given equal attention? Should library schools focus on preparing students for employment in specialized positions and environments, such as academic libraries, or might a general core program provide the basic preparation for library work?The roles of the hiring institution and the beginning librarian are similarly open to question. Should the employing library be expected to provide extensive on-thejob training, or simply orientation to its particular policies and procedures? And, how far does the responsibility of the beginning librarian extend? Should a beginning librarian identify the gaps in personal professional knowledge and assume the responsibility for filling those gaps through informal self-instruction or formal continuing education programs? Discussion of these questions has generally focused on how librarians should be educated, rather than how they are educated, and has rarely reflected the perceptions of entry-level librarians who have recently begun to use their education. Accordingly, we decided to ask a number of beginning academic librarians about their actual job responsibilities, and the manner in which they learned to perform their duties. Finally, we sought to elicit their opinions about how their job responsibilities should have been taught. Librarians employed by the State University of New York were selected for our study. METHODOLOGYIn the fall of 1980 we sent introductory letters to the library directors of the four SUNY (State University of New York) university centers and the twelve SUNY fouryear colleges of arts and science ( excluding Empire State College which has no campus per se). The letters asked for the director's cooperation in distributing the questionnaires to librarians on their staffs who had received graduate degrees in 1976 or later. Three university center library directors and ten four-year college library directors cooperated. Questionnaires were distributed to sixty-seven academic librarians who met our criterion.

“You Can’t Learn It in School”: Field Experiences and Their Contributions to Education and Professional Identity / «Ça ne s’apprend pas à l’école » : Les expériences de terrain et leur contribution à la formation de l’identité éducationnelle et professionnelle

“…This research also supports the importance of informal training, as acknowledged in research by LIS scholars DeVinney and Tegler (1983) and Sare, Bales, and Neville (2012). The relatively high value placed on informal training over formal training or orientation programs may in fact underscore the value of classroom learning for librarians, further reinforcing the link between theory and practice.…”

New Academic Librarians and Their Perceptions of the Profession

“…They discovered that cataloging skills tended to be learned on-the-job, skills for conducting original research were obtained predominantly through self-instruction, and reference service skills came through a mixture of on-the-job learning, self-instruction, and library school training. 10 The majority of those surveyed agreed that institution-specific training should be left to the hiring institution, generic work common to all libraries should be left to the library schools, and self-instruction was not a preferred method of training. 11 Joanne Oud's survey of organizational socialization among new academic librarians at Canadian universities found differences, both positive and negative, between the respondents' expectations and the realities of their first professional assignment.…”

On‐the‐job training: a key to human resource development

“…De Vinney and Tegler (1983) found, in their survey, OJT to be the most important means of learning job responsibilities.…”