Library Education

Library education is closely related to the technological advances in information science. Technological innovations have brought changes not only in the subjects taught, but how they are taught, as with the incorporation of distance learning programs. The amount of useful technology instruction a library program should provide remains an open question. To provide further education in the theoretical foundations of librarianship, the curriculum could eliminate the time spent training in obsolescent technologies, as librarians should rather rely on the necessary preparation provided by commercial library vendors.

Rather than becoming the tools of their tools, librarians can exploit technological advances as means to their benefit and to relieve their workload. Expert systems, for example, are automated aids devoted to such procedures as collection development, cataloging and classification, and other information work. With the growth of computerized library resources, greater technological expertise will be required by all library workers. Although library services are becoming more computerized and automated, this mechanistic drive of expertise does not eliminate the need for librarians. The more new technologies are made available to people, librarians will need to have the teaching methods and skills called upon to educate and communicate with customers.

An interdisciplinary analogy here is that just as neurologists profit from a firm background in psychology to interpret the nature of their discoveries, computer scientists and database designers require lessons from librarians to learn how best to design and build information resources. Thus the computerization of libraries and information does not eliminate the need for librarians, but rather the technological advances in databases, and the Internet in particular, have produced a market for digital librarians. With the exponential growth of information being published, librarians are also needed to maintain libraries not just in a clerical capacity, but to assist patrons in wading through the seas of information available.

Scientific progress in data and information technology has also enabled the available formats of library collections to expand from printed works to electronic texts, images, and videos. A wider and more complicated range of information technology has entailed a less uniform curriculum in library schools beyond the required core courses, producing graduates with a broader range of skills along with basic library competencies. Basic skills and proficiencies are still needed for librarians to make efficient use of print and electronic tools, but continuing education and personal development are also necessary for information professionals to maintain knowledge within the expanding information economy.