The Role of Librarians in a Knowledge Society: Valuing Our Intellectual Capital Assets

Databrarian ed? Preparing Information Specialists for Participation in an Open Datafied Society

“…Several studies in the past five years have taken a more fundamental look at LIS education informed by practitioner and other stakeholder views on gaps in current provision and requirements for the future, including one-off contributions (Bedford, Donley and Lensenmayer, 2015;Pettitt, 2018) and multi-year projects (Abels, Howarth and Smith, 2018;Bertot, Sarin and Percell, 2015;Lankes, Stephens and Arjona, 2015). Collectively the studies offer a range of perspectives on professional education, using various lenses to frame their investigations, such as intellectual capital (Bedford et al, 2015), professional apprenticeships (Pettitt, 2018), participatory/convergence culture (Lankes et al, 2015) and design thinking (Abels et al, 2018). The reports vary in focus, but share several common themes reflecting both longstanding concerns and emerging interests.…”

“…Thus Lankes et al (2015, S63) characterise the mission of librarians as 'to foster conversations that improve society through knowledge exchange and social action' [emphasis added], placing Transformative Social Engagementwhich embraces activism, social responsibility, critical social analysis and understanding community needs -as their priority core skillset. Abels et al (2018) identify 'Understanding social issues and social change' as an important competency, while Bedford et al (2015) list social intelligence and social networks among new behavioural competencies for information professionals. Bertot et al (2015, 7-8) also foreground the social dimension in their vision of information professionals (and their organisations) as 'community change agents' and specifically 'critical leaders of social innovation in their communities' [emphasis added], interpreted to include 'areas such as health, education and learning, economic development, poverty and hunger, civic engagement, preservation and cultural heritage, and research innovation'.…”

“…Three studies signal a shift in thinking that de-emphasizes holding physical collections and digital content to focus on organising materials for users and making them accessible (Lankes et al, 2015); facilitating content creation and curation by individuals, organisations and communities, and helping people leverage their data as digital assets for community problemsolving (Bertot et al, 2015); and extending library stewardship from information to knowledge resources, managing and leveraging intellectual assets, including human, structural and, particularly, relational capital as knowledge facilitators in their communities (Bedford et al, 2015). Bertot et al (2015) present this as a shift from collections to communities ('people, not stuff'), a user-centred approach that goes beyond users interacting with holdings in passive impersonal transactions to librarians proactively facilitating individual transformations through learning and skills development in interactive and immersive environments, such as coding workshops and makerspaces.…”

“…The participatory culture of the digital network world requires practitioners who are socially engaged, participating in the activities of their communities and delivering expertise/support embedded (physically or virtually) in the workflows and lifeflows of their users, which in turn requires both technical/functional and behavioural competencies -including expertise in learning facilitation and technology translation, user-centred design and assessment methods, and abilities in communication and interaction, collaboration and relationship management, creative thinking and self-reflection (Bedford et al, 2015;Fleming-May et al, 2018). Such attributes are not new: they have surfaced in skills debates over decades, though the language may have changed (Fisher, Hallam and Partridge, 2005;Partridge, Lee and Munro, 2010).…”

The Knowledge Lens: Equipping Information Professionals to Spark Innovation within Organizations and Society

“…Although a full-scale analysis of LIS curriculum and the embedding of these elements is beyond the scope of this paper, my own experience suggests that these elements are not often explicitly incorporated into LIS classrooms. Bedford et al (2015) outline the competencies of librarians and information professionals according to standards and competencies of professional organizations in the field. Those learned on the job and not included in LIS education include self-motivation, communication, translation of complex ideas, and developing relationships.…”