Librarianship As An Academic Discipline?

Librarianship has been treated as a practice-based profession.  Programs are designed around the practical applications of "doing" library work.  Yet, in a world where there is increasing emphasis on information as a key to economic, social and political success, there may be a need to pull apart the issues that shape librarianship and examine them from an academic angle. 

There are numerous issues related to the profession of librarianship that are worthy of examination beyond a two year Master's or Diploma program.  Indeed, within those two year programs students can be titillated by the interesting problems and prospects that new technology and information use present.  However, there is little time for exploration.  Certainly, once one becomes a practitioner, there is little time to reflect on the broader aspects of the field.   It is a common complaint among busy librarians and there is great frustration in trying to make informed decisions when there is little time to discuss and reflect on long term consquences.  Greater discourse is needed and although this can occur at conferences, discussion boards, blogs, and lists, there is room for more research and debate in post secondary institutions. In turn, those forums can supply the industry with inspired, engaged and active participants that may be better positioned to move back and forth between academic study and practice.

The current situation is troubling because there is a tremendous amount of change in how people use and manage information and library workers are often the ones who observe these changes.  As a result, they have some valuable opinions, experience and advice that may enhance how the broader community adopts technology and change.  Those who work in information centres have first-hand knowledge of how publishing, emerging technologies, and user search behaviours intersect.  There is a tremendous opportunity to share this knowledge with other disciplines and communities.  As the ground shifts beneath us, it becomes clear that there is a profound interconnectedness between information and change.  There is room for information studies to more actively partake in the discussions held by the academy of higher education.

In other disciplines, there is an avenue where academic discourse can occur and develop through formally recognized academic programs.   Most professions enjoy a continuum of study that can begin at a certificate or diploma level and move through undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate programs.  Librarianship does not enjoy this direct path of observation, exploration, discussion and reflection.  There are programs that look at information management at the undergraduate level but many of these are centred around other, more specific disciplines including business and computer information systems.  While there is nothing wrong with such programs, there is another outlet of study that has not been fully addressed. 

Local to change the global

Life is really an amazing series of serendipitous moments! Recently, on the way home from work, I listened to Facing the Future, a broadcast of a lecture by Prince Charles on the struggles of managing the mess that we have created with our planet. I was so enamoured with his eloquence that I will jump at the first chance to see one of his speaking engagements.

But that, alone, is not what got me thinking.

It was his profound message.

I was captivated by his statement:

How could we better empower all sorts of communities to create a much more participative economic model that safeguards their identity, cohesion and diversity – one that makes a clear distinction between the maintenance of Nature’s capital reserves and the income it produces? That is the challenge we face, it seems to me – to see Nature’s capital and her processes as the very basis of a new form of economics and to engage communities at the grass roots to put those processes first. If we can do that, then we have an approach that acts locally by thinking globally, just as Nature does – all parts operating locally to establish the coherence of the whole. (HRH, para 39)

Having just posted an article, here, discussing the problems with association memberships, and suggesting that we must think "locally", I was intrigued to hear him say that we must act locally to, "establish coherence of the whole". We hear this message of "thinking" locally with more frequency. We hear it when we discuss changing our attitudes towards how we acquire our food. We hear it when we discuss the evolution of our health, education, and transportation systems. We feel it when we watch all of those horrifying Discovery Channel documentaries about the fate of the human race. This message, like a system of small waterways, is converging into one major river system that represents our need to realign of our thinking. We need to reconnect with nature. We need to reconnect with our communities.