WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 1 00:00:01.819 --> 00:00:08.029 BONNIE POSTLETHWAITE: Well, it looks like the diehards are still here. Thank you. I 2 00:00:08.029 --> 00:00:14.240 know many people had to catch flights out. I'm Bonnie Postlethwaite. I'm the dean of 3 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:21.040 libraries at the University of Kansas City and I'd like to welcome you to Kansas City. 4 00:00:21.040 --> 00:00:29.430 I hope it's enough to entice you back. It's a great city. I would also like to thank IMLS 5 00:00:29.430 --> 00:00:34.500 for sponsoring this. I think this has been a great discussion that's going to accumulate 6 00:00:34.500 --> 00:00:43.710 into a wonderful discussion here at this last session. Today we're focusing on aligning 7 00:00:43.710 --> 00:00:49.900 curriculum with the needs of today's libraries and library users, with an eye on how IMLS 8 00:00:49.900 --> 00:00:55.410 can prioritize and target their funding towards building a strong profession with a longterm 9 00:00:55.410 --> 00:01:03.070 future. So how do we prepare new professionals to be better prepared for today's needs? What 10 00:01:03.070 --> 00:01:08.350 is the current state of the profession? What's happening? What's working? What are the gaps 11 00:01:08.350 --> 00:01:14.060 and opportunities. How do these things translate into actionable funding priorities for IMLS 12 00:01:14.060 --> 00:01:19.860 grant programs. And that's what we hope to address this afternoon, and I'm sure that 13 00:01:19.860 --> 00:01:27.280 you all have ideas that you can contribute once we've had our four panelists give a brief 14 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:35.409 perspective of their own on these topics. So with us today, we have David Lankes, who's 15 00:01:35.409 --> 00:01:42.290 a professor, School of Information Studies at Syracuse. Mary Stansbury, who's associate 16 00:01:42.290 --> 00:01:46.969 professor, Library and Information Science at University of Denver. She's also the chair 17 00:01:46.969 --> 00:01:53.729 of the ALA committee on accreditation. Mark Puente is the director of Diversity and Leadership 18 00:01:53.729 --> 00:02:00.259 Programs at the Association of Research Libraries, and Siobhan Reardon is the president and director 19 00:02:00.259 --> 00:02:05.600 of the Free Library of Philadelphia and we're going to go in that order, so take it away, 20 00:02:05.600 --> 00:02:08.500 David. >> DAVID LANKES: We've also agreed that we're 21 00:02:08.500 --> 00:02:14.460 not going to use PowerPoint and we're not going to get up. So there. 22 00:02:14.460 --> 00:02:23.180 [Laughter] actually, I would like to reward you for staying, and online. I would like 23 00:02:23.180 --> 00:02:30.120 to reward you by committing a little suicide before you, I'm going to take on the national 24 00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:37.500 archivist and call him to task. At this gathering for the national platform and chaired platform 25 00:02:37.500 --> 00:02:44.160 two weeks ago in some of his comments, he didn't spare too many words for information 26 00:02:44.160 --> 00:02:49.130 and library science programs, actually library museum and archive sciences, and while he 27 00:02:49.130 --> 00:02:53.080 did acknowledge that there may be some pockets of expertise and excellence, which I'm sure 28 00:02:53.080 --> 00:02:55.030 he was talking about us. >> Yes. 29 00:02:55.030 --> 00:03:01.840 >> DAVID LANKES: He said that in essence, we, as a people preparing the next generation 30 00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:07.730 of library science, weren't coming from the the folks we were sending weren't giving him 31 00:03:07.730 --> 00:03:13.040 the skills they needed, that the folks he needed to hire weren't coming from our professional 32 00:03:13.040 --> 00:03:18.480 programs, that libraries, archives and museum programs, these folks didn't comingle. They 33 00:03:18.480 --> 00:03:23.390 didn't necessarily have the skills, of which he mentioned specifically one, which was that 34 00:03:23.390 --> 00:03:29.620 he needed people who could be nice. >> I don't know how you teach that. 35 00:03:29.620 --> 00:03:37.220 >> DAVID LANKES: I don't know what he's talking about. Being nice. Anyway, but the big thing 36 00:03:37.220 --> 00:03:40.460 that he raised, and actually had a really interesting online discussion, where I'd like 37 00:03:40.460 --> 00:03:46.860 to begin my comments today, is he said that when he talked to library science programs 38 00:03:46.860 --> 00:03:52.580 and others, but library science programs are what he mentioned, that he said that we consider 39 00:03:52.580 --> 00:03:58.020 our students, our customers, and, in fact, that that was wrong, that he was our customers, 40 00:03:58.020 --> 00:04:03.120 and by inference, institutions of libraries, museums and archives are the customers of 41 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:09.200 our programs. So that can be raised really into an interesting question. So before I 42 00:04:09.200 --> 00:04:16.009 jump in to that question, I do want to, however, bring back something that Ken Haycock once 43 00:04:16.009 --> 00:04:21.560 said in a 2004 panel where we were talking about librarian information instruction, Ken 44 00:04:21.560 --> 00:04:27.090 went to great pains to remind us all that it is, in fact the profession that credits 45 00:04:27.090 --> 00:04:32.640 our programs, that you folk, and him, set the criteria by which we are evaluated and 46 00:04:32.640 --> 00:04:38.030 assessed, and we take that very seriously. This isn't something that we just sort of 47 00:04:38.030 --> 00:04:42.650 run away on and go wee! Let's try this today! But we'll come back to that in a moment. 48 00:04:42.650 --> 00:04:48.520 Really, I want to take on this notion that libraries are our customers. And the first 49 00:04:48.520 --> 00:04:53.560 is I want to take issue with the word "Customer." Because I don't like that word in libraries 50 00:04:53.560 --> 00:04:59.140 in general. I think that we have a much more entangled, much more interesting and much 51 00:04:59.140 --> 00:05:03.900 more potentially powerful relationship with those that we serve, and that those that we 52 00:05:03.900 --> 00:05:09.530 are a part of. I don't believe that our communities are our customers. I believe that we are our 53 00:05:09.530 --> 00:05:14.860 communities. And just as when I talk about libraries and when I talk about library science 54 00:05:14.860 --> 00:05:19.680 professors and when I talk about library science students, I don't look at them as separate 55 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:26.340 categories. I look at them as part of a profession. For example, when a new student graduates 56 00:05:26.340 --> 00:05:31.930 from Syracuse University, they in essence inherit some of the value and prestige that 57 00:05:31.930 --> 00:05:35.870 comes with it. In essence, they're treading on our good name to help them in their field, 58 00:05:35.870 --> 00:05:40.810 but five years, ten years later, it is exactly the opposite, where we are trading on their 59 00:05:40.810 --> 00:05:45.550 skills as alumni and where their positions are and how they've succeeded and the stories 60 00:05:45.550 --> 00:05:51.690 that we can tell. That kind of intricate relationship between alumni and school, higher, potential 61 00:05:51.690 --> 00:05:57.110 higher, all of that is much more complex than simply customers and consumers. Just as I 62 00:05:57.110 --> 00:06:02.060 would hope that in our libraries, they're not just this is why I hate the word "User," 63 00:06:02.060 --> 00:06:06.780 you know, I don't think any librarian stands up and celebrates the fact that they have 64 00:06:06.780 --> 00:06:08.170 been used. [Laughter] 65 00:06:08.170 --> 00:06:13.621 And I'm hoping not too many people walk around going, boy, I used them good today. This idea 66 00:06:13.621 --> 00:06:18.060 that they are our members, they're part of us. They're our neighbors, they're our they 67 00:06:18.060 --> 00:06:25.420 are part of us. So that's the first. But the second is this challenge of who is the customer. 68 00:06:25.420 --> 00:06:28.680 I think the idea that the museums and libraries and archives, and in our case the libraries, 69 00:06:28.680 --> 00:06:36.920 are our customers come from a gild mentality that talks about the idea that we are preparing 70 00:06:36.920 --> 00:06:40.870 spare parts for a profession and when the reference library dies, we wheel out the reference 71 00:06:40.870 --> 00:06:46.170 librarian and wheel in a new one, and while there's been great accusations between the 72 00:06:46.170 --> 00:06:50.180 library science schools that we're not preparing the people you need, let me reverse this for 73 00:06:50.180 --> 00:06:54.200 a moment and say you guys are not keeping up your end of the bargain and hiring the 74 00:06:54.200 --> 00:06:59.639 people that we produce. That's what it takes for you guys to be the customer as a hundred 75 00:06:59.639 --> 00:07:04.660 percent of our product and it doesn't happen and it's not your fault, but what this is 76 00:07:04.660 --> 00:07:10.000 meant is that what's happened is we looked for other markets where our students can find 77 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:16.130 places, and, in fact, in the 1970s, as early as the 1970s, my not my dean, but a former 78 00:07:16.130 --> 00:07:20.030 dean of my school named Bob Taylor, renamed us from the school of library sciences to 79 00:07:20.030 --> 00:07:26.419 the school of information studies and said hey, these same skills. How we implement this 80 00:07:26.419 --> 00:07:31.360 and information retrieval and technology and patternization and user behavior and such 81 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:36.260 can be used in other industries. Why should we just be producing these folks, for one, 82 00:07:36.260 --> 00:07:43.130 when we can take this great thing and strengthen intelligence, banking, computing, all these 83 00:07:43.130 --> 00:07:49.290 other industries, and I would argue that what's happened in the years since then is that we've 84 00:07:49.290 --> 00:07:55.800 seen a massive growth in other industries looking for the tasks that our field has produced, 85 00:07:55.800 --> 00:07:59.669 and we've seen library science programs become part of and eventually smaller and smaller 86 00:07:59.669 --> 00:08:06.610 part of information studies programs, because we see a larger market elsewhere. And we've 87 00:08:06.610 --> 00:08:11.180 kept library science programs dedicated and devoted to a single industry, and what that 88 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:17.960 is meant is the gradual migration of different points of view into these different camps. 89 00:08:17.960 --> 00:08:22.470 So on the library side we see services essential. We see customer service and being nice as 90 00:08:22.470 --> 00:08:27.770 essential. We see information organization as essential. And in information we see large 91 00:08:27.770 --> 00:08:33.839 scale data. We see technology. We see user implementation. We see the idea of return 92 00:08:33.839 --> 00:08:39.300 on investment as essential. And yet we know, by me just combing through that list, yes, 93 00:08:39.300 --> 00:08:45.480 they're all essential, but they have begun to migrate out. People who seek to serve others 94 00:08:45.480 --> 00:08:50.110 with their values of librarianship need technology and need understanding. People who seek to 95 00:08:50.110 --> 00:08:55.610 improve banking need values. Let's be really honest, people who serve banking need values 96 00:08:55.610 --> 00:09:01.370 [in a louder voice]. And by segmenting these out and saying no, you go into the library 97 00:09:01.370 --> 00:09:05.060 and you do this, we are causing a service and a rift within our profession that is not 98 00:09:05.060 --> 00:09:10.220 about who does cataloguing and what we call our profession, but is very much about what 99 00:09:10.220 --> 00:09:17.529 we seek to do so here's my one line and then I will shut up, that I do not envy what IMLS 100 00:09:17.529 --> 00:09:21.190 has to decide in the near future, which is, are you going to continue to support libraries, 101 00:09:21.190 --> 00:09:27.890 or are you going to begin to support librarians.  Those librarians taking our values and taking 102 00:09:27.890 --> 00:09:31.750 our ideas, yes, into our institutions and into our communities but also into our banks 103 00:09:31.750 --> 00:09:39.240 and our nonprofit organizations and our blood banks and all these things. I did a quick 104 00:09:39.240 --> 00:09:44.210 this is my piece of data and then I'll shut up. This is our attendance list. I did a count. 105 00:09:44.210 --> 00:09:48.920 I got roughly 30 out of 56 of you do not work in libraries. You work in library schools, 106 00:09:48.920 --> 00:09:53.089 you work in library associations, you work in notforprofit organizations. I think you 107 00:09:53.089 --> 00:09:57.440 guys count, and I think you're important in our education, even though you may not be 108 00:09:57.440 --> 00:10:01.880 seen, or Dave Ferrier doesn't see you as our customers. I think he and I would agree on 109 00:10:01.880 --> 00:10:04.201 a lot of these things, but I just like to pick on him, so 110 00:10:04.201 --> 00:10:14.390 >> Well, as the person earlier today who regretted coming after Anne Craig, I'm coming after 111 00:10:14.390 --> 00:10:20.480 David Lankes, but I would like to talk a little bit about how our program at the University 112 00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:26.540 of Denver has tried to align what we do in terms of the learning experience we create 113 00:10:26.540 --> 00:10:31.230 and nurture for our students, and what the profession has told us it would like to have, 114 00:10:31.230 --> 00:10:37.250 as well as say a little bit about accreditation, which I appreciate David kind of getting that 115 00:10:37.250 --> 00:10:41.090 ball rolling. So very different hats here. But a little 116 00:10:41.090 --> 00:10:47.790 bit about DULIS. And I want to thank IMLS for its amazing support of our program over 117 00:10:47.790 --> 00:10:53.700 the years. We've had some great funding for our early childhood librarianship program 118 00:10:53.700 --> 00:10:59.010 in which we combine course work in LIS with course work in child family and school psychology, 119 00:10:59.010 --> 00:11:06.300 including infant development, language acquisition, children with special needs, as well as we 120 00:11:06.300 --> 00:11:10.460 were partners with the Denver public library on their leaders fellowships which brought 121 00:11:10.460 --> 00:11:16.260 people into the program and then out into the community with an MLS who can speak Vietnamese, 122 00:11:16.260 --> 00:11:21.940 who are Vietnamese, Russian and Spanish so we've really benefitted from that amazing 123 00:11:21.940 --> 00:11:28.260 partnership we have with the institutions in the Denver the Rocky Mountain West, as 124 00:11:28.260 --> 00:11:34.649 well as Web wise and spell and public libraries, we're very, very grateful for that. 125 00:11:34.649 --> 00:11:39.080 Our program is a small program. In fact, some of you might remember when it went away in 126 00:11:39.080 --> 00:11:45.360 the '80s, and it came back in the late mid to late '90s. And so we're very small, and 127 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:50.640 we're facetoface only, which puts us in a pretty unique place. Not many programs are 128 00:11:50.640 --> 00:11:55.050 face to face only anymore, but what that allows us to do is a couple of things I think that 129 00:11:55.050 --> 00:11:59.620 really help our students become ready for the profession. And one of those things is 130 00:11:59.620 --> 00:12:07.140 that each student in our program has a professional mentor, and just as a measure of how great 131 00:12:07.140 --> 00:12:11.920 the support is in the region, we have more mentor volunteers than we have students. So 132 00:12:11.920 --> 00:12:16.339 we've been very, very fortunate with that support. So each student gets to connect with 133 00:12:16.339 --> 00:12:22.580 the mentor professional really from the day they start the program. We also have a review 134 00:12:22.580 --> 00:12:27.279 process. Annually each student gets reviewed not only for academic performance, but for 135 00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:32.680 disposition, such as leadership, in a personal communication, those sorts of things, so we're 136 00:12:32.680 --> 00:12:39.110 able to really watch our students develop as professionals and if we see a need for 137 00:12:39.110 --> 00:12:42.371 helping them think about leadership in a way that doesn't mean president of the student 138 00:12:42.371 --> 00:12:48.550 chapter of ALA, we, as faculty, are responsible for making that happen. 139 00:12:48.550 --> 00:12:53.210 I mentioned the outstanding, energetic practitioners. We're also in a college of education, which, 140 00:12:53.210 --> 00:12:59.820 for so many years has been viewed by ILS education as a disadvantage, but for us it's a huge 141 00:12:59.820 --> 00:13:04.790 advantage mainly because the child family and school psyche programs in that college, 142 00:13:04.790 --> 00:13:09.800 our partner program in our department is research methods and statistics, and we're actually 143 00:13:09.800 --> 00:13:13.770 working with them to develop a post master certificate and assessment and evaluation, 144 00:13:13.770 --> 00:13:18.890 so that's kind of hitting a button that we mentioned earlier. 145 00:13:18.890 --> 00:13:24.410 I think, too, that because we're small, because our college is small, University of Denver 146 00:13:24.410 --> 00:13:29.210 is not that large, we have to look at things from an interdisciplinary perspective, which 147 00:13:29.210 --> 00:13:35.529 matches well with the problems that practitioners have. There's not a library science problem 148 00:13:35.529 --> 00:13:41.940 hardly ever that's just pure library science. And just as another example of what we're 149 00:13:41.940 --> 00:13:49.910 trying to do based on feedback from our stakeholders, our employers, our students, our alums is 150 00:13:49.910 --> 00:13:54.850 beginning in the fall, some funding from our dean of the college of education and the dean 151 00:13:54.850 --> 00:14:00.250 of university libraries, we're piloting what we're calling a clinical model, and because 152 00:14:00.250 --> 00:14:04.399 we have the child family and school psyche folks and the counseling psyche folks, we 153 00:14:04.399 --> 00:14:09.700 have some really good templates for a clinical model for professional education. And we're 154 00:14:09.700 --> 00:14:17.890 doing this, first in the university libraries at DU, and what we're doing is we're creating 155 00:14:17.890 --> 00:14:24.250 learning outcomes that relate to the course work that the students will be in the classroom, 156 00:14:24.250 --> 00:14:29.209 but then they'll be for we're on a quarter system, for three quarters, they'll be in 157 00:14:29.209 --> 00:14:34.500 the university library with specific, specific experiences that are connected back to the 158 00:14:34.500 --> 00:14:40.779 classroom content. So we have great, you know, cooperation from the university libraries, 159 00:14:40.779 --> 00:14:47.100 we're developing these learning outcomes together, and what that allows us to do is look at how 160 00:14:47.100 --> 00:14:52.430 students develop their expertise, as well as their professional demeanor and their professional 161 00:14:52.430 --> 00:14:57.470 skills and we'd be able to at any point in time say you know what, to a particular student, 162 00:14:57.470 --> 00:15:02.300 you can't wear cutoffs to work, that kind of thing, which, unfortunately, does happen, 163 00:15:02.300 --> 00:15:07.300 especially in Colorado. So that is very exciting to us. We are piloting it. We're going to 164 00:15:07.300 --> 00:15:12.970 see how it goes. But, clinical models take an enormous commitment on the part of the 165 00:15:12.970 --> 00:15:18.710 profession. It takes a lot of time, as most of you probably know, to supervise a practicum 166 00:15:18.710 --> 00:15:25.470 student. That's one level of involvement with that student's learning experience. When we 167 00:15:25.470 --> 00:15:30.350 bump it up to a clinical model there's a whole lot more of your time that we would need to 168 00:15:30.350 --> 00:15:37.370 make that work, so we'll see how that goes. But we also believe that that's what we need. 169 00:15:37.370 --> 00:15:42.760 For several reasons. Certainly, again, as we hear from you all, that our students, graduates 170 00:15:42.760 --> 00:15:49.290 in a general sense aren't ready for the profession, for work, I should say, which is different. 171 00:15:49.290 --> 00:15:54.860 And then we're also and this is across LIS programs, our students are getting younger 172 00:15:54.860 --> 00:15:59.160 and younger and younger. I mean, I'm waiting for, you know, a 12yearold to show up not 173 00:15:59.160 --> 00:16:04.140 really in the classroom, but and because of that, they have very little context in terms 174 00:16:04.140 --> 00:16:12.529 of working anywhere other than maybe in an hourly position somewhere, and then no context 175 00:16:12.529 --> 00:16:16.620 related to libraries. LIS faculty, we're going to have to step it 176 00:16:16.620 --> 00:16:24.310 up. We can't lean back on the skills I acquired as a school librarian many years ago in Plano, 177 00:16:24.310 --> 00:16:29.460 Texas. So we're going to have to step it up so that we can meet the expectations of our 178 00:16:29.460 --> 00:16:33.490 practitioner partners. And then I want to say, I have a minute left, a little bit about 179 00:16:33.490 --> 00:16:43.149 accreditation. The accreditation is about program quality. Right now, in our field and 180 00:16:43.149 --> 00:16:48.450 specifically through the American library association accreditation is the only professional 181 00:16:48.450 --> 00:16:54.200 ride credential we have, and that's why I think in part accreditation is looked to to 182 00:16:54.200 --> 00:17:01.160 solve so many problems, but it's about academic program quality. Certainly it responds to 183 00:17:01.160 --> 00:17:06.000 and reflects what the profession says are important things to learn, the values, the 184 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:13.829 big ideas, but accreditation is not about saying what you should want from our graduates. 185 00:17:13.829 --> 00:17:19.949 It is responding to what the profession tells us. A librarian knees to know, no, there's 186 00:17:19.949 --> 00:17:26.350 not a lot of agreement. If you look back at the core competences, which is, we have all 187 00:17:26.350 --> 00:17:30.010 these competency statements that really don't give us a whole lot of direction about what 188 00:17:30.010 --> 00:17:37.019 y'all need so I wanted to mention that. Yes. Sorry. That is that one is, yeah, hot button 189 00:17:37.019 --> 00:17:39.789 issue there. In addition, we have the differentiation issues, 190 00:17:39.789 --> 00:17:48.640 and my time is up there, but, thank you. [Applause] 191 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:54.450 >> MARK PUENTE: So thank you. Thank you for the invitation to be here. In high school, 192 00:17:54.450 --> 00:18:01.289 I was big in drama, but speaking is my worst category so I try to script out everything 193 00:18:01.289 --> 00:18:08.129 I say, so please bear with me. I'll try to be emphatic here, but I won't be as emphatic 194 00:18:08.129 --> 00:18:15.789 as David. My comments here reflect what I see and what many in the research library 195 00:18:15.789 --> 00:18:26.510 see as the current And then also based on a little bit of evidence, 196 00:18:26.510 --> 00:18:32.809 which is having I think my finger on the pulse of the position descriptions that are being 197 00:18:32.809 --> 00:18:37.990 deposited to our academic library, research library and database that ARL hosts. 198 00:18:37.990 --> 00:18:43.840 I'm also going to delineate a little bit here between the skills side and the competency 199 00:18:43.840 --> 00:18:48.539 side. I'll explain it a little bit more what I mean, but I think there may be some taxonomy 200 00:18:48.539 --> 00:18:53.610 issues here but I'll try to explain what I mean. But from the skills side, in terms of 201 00:18:53.610 --> 00:18:59.539 function, and expertise, I think a lot of the sort of titles and roles that I'm about 202 00:18:59.539 --> 00:19:03.140 to enumerate here are going to sound familiar to everybody in this room, even to public 203 00:19:03.140 --> 00:19:11.019 and school libraries, so areas around data and digital curation. GIS specialists, right? 204 00:19:11.019 --> 00:19:17.019 Digital humanists. People engaged in assessment, user experience, but also, in our community, 205 00:19:17.019 --> 00:19:22.840 with a an emphasis on alternative metrics, highly, highly important. People who are expert 206 00:19:22.840 --> 00:19:27.710 in flipped teaching pedagogies and instructional technology. These are the people that we're 207 00:19:27.710 --> 00:19:35.129 recruiting into these researchintensive environments. People with that are able to support research 208 00:19:35.129 --> 00:19:39.691 focus that is kind of R & D maker spaces. We've had a lot of conversations about that 209 00:19:39.691 --> 00:19:45.200 today, those efforts today. Digital storytelling also as a pedagogy. Those with linguistic 210 00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:50.929 tools, we're hiring many, many digital archivists into our community. People who are familiar 211 00:19:50.929 --> 00:19:57.500 with postcustodial archives models, which puts the sort of curation role at the creator 212 00:19:57.500 --> 00:20:03.029 level, can talk more about that if anybody has questions. People who know a lot about 213 00:20:03.029 --> 00:20:08.649 open educational resources, and, of course, open access, and open data. So people who 214 00:20:08.649 --> 00:20:13.360 have an in depth understanding of the scholarly communication ecosystem. So these are the 215 00:20:13.360 --> 00:20:17.890 types of people that are really getting jobs these days. 216 00:20:17.890 --> 00:20:23.879 I also reported back in March at Columbia University library symposium about the growing 217 00:20:23.879 --> 00:20:31.429 trend, and again, I'm just the messenger here, within ARL libraries, research intensive organizations 218 00:20:31.429 --> 00:20:37.720 to hire outside of the traditional MLIS pipeline. That is a reality. In fact, over the last 219 00:20:37.720 --> 00:20:47.529 five years, in our librarian database at ARL, we've seen really a marked increase in the 220 00:20:47.529 --> 00:20:53.250 number of positions that are being posted that have either the MLIS is not even mentioned, 221 00:20:53.250 --> 00:20:58.359 these are professional level positions that require no MLIS or don't even have the MLIS 222 00:20:58.359 --> 00:21:04.070 as a preferred qualification. So that's a trend, definitely. 223 00:21:04.070 --> 00:21:09.100 For some of those roles, I mean, I think, you know, it's possibly very predictable in 224 00:21:09.100 --> 00:21:13.549 research libraries. Some of those are in the technology side, such as programmers, systems, 225 00:21:13.549 --> 00:21:17.899 analysts and other functional specialties, and some others such as HR specialists and 226 00:21:17.899 --> 00:21:21.929 marketing analysts. That's another trend in research libraries. 227 00:21:21.929 --> 00:21:27.460 But also, some of those position descriptions that are absent of that MLIS requirement are 228 00:21:27.460 --> 00:21:33.549 for deans and directors for collections analysts and things like this. So who knows where we're 229 00:21:33.549 --> 00:21:39.009 headed with that. And also, with respect to those instances 230 00:21:39.009 --> 00:21:44.679 where recruiting people into our organizations that have a high level of domain expertise 231 00:21:44.679 --> 00:21:50.480 or subjects expertise, particularly hiring Ph.Ds that have no traditional library training. 232 00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:56.769 So, you know, what is our role in CD, PD, and in traditional LIS pipeline to prepare 233 00:21:56.769 --> 00:22:06.289 and assimilate those people into our community. So let's see, so the competency side of it 234 00:22:06.289 --> 00:22:08.780 I'm running out of time, there's also a lot of talk in our community, and I bet in other 235 00:22:08.780 --> 00:22:14.360 sectors as well, about those competencies, and here I'm referring to mindsets, right, 236 00:22:14.360 --> 00:22:20.729 dispositions, such as change readiness, right? Collaborative mind sets, entrepreneurial or 237 00:22:20.729 --> 00:22:28.169 risktaking mind sets, cultural competencies, so all of these things that will keep the 238 00:22:28.169 --> 00:22:35.909 our communities engaged, and that will respond to the current needs of our community. 239 00:22:35.909 --> 00:22:41.559 So again, in the brief time that I have, I want to switch just a little bit to talking 240 00:22:41.559 --> 00:22:48.460 on the diversity side because I think also, critically, in LIS programs, and in continuing 241 00:22:48.460 --> 00:22:52.919 education and professional development, we have to begin having conversation, deeper 242 00:22:52.919 --> 00:22:58.179 conversations and educating people and informing people about the value that diversity and 243 00:22:58.179 --> 00:23:04.169 inclusion bring to our profession. It is absolutely critical. It is critical for relevance. And 244 00:23:04.169 --> 00:23:08.890 by the way, I mean diversity in its broadest sense. Not only racial and ethnic diversity, 245 00:23:08.890 --> 00:23:15.450 but religious diversity, sexual orientation, age, demographic diversity, all of those components 246 00:23:15.450 --> 00:23:20.109 and those elements of the human experience and the human conditions. So it's a relevance 247 00:23:20.109 --> 00:23:26.070 issue. It's been mentioned many times today that we know from research that libraries 248 00:23:26.070 --> 00:23:31.590 and archives are seen as more inviting. When people see themselves, their customers, their 249 00:23:31.590 --> 00:23:37.119 patrons, whatever that word is, see themselves represented in their collections, in the professional 250 00:23:37.119 --> 00:23:42.140 staff, in their programming, we know this, right, and there is and there's increasing 251 00:23:42.140 --> 00:23:48.289 evidence that those that sort of inclusivity, it actually adds to student success and advances 252 00:23:48.289 --> 00:23:53.340 the teaching and learning missions of these organizations. 253 00:23:53.340 --> 00:23:58.139 It's also a matter of organizational excellence. There's abundant scientific evidence that 254 00:23:58.139 --> 00:24:03.519 having a diverse work force and diverse collections improves organizational performance and I 255 00:24:03.519 --> 00:24:07.590 frequently, as I give these talks, cite the work from Dr. Scott Paige. I hope you know 256 00:24:07.590 --> 00:24:11.590 some of him at the University of Michigan, who has done extensive research about the 257 00:24:11.590 --> 00:24:16.190 abilities of groups to make decisions and to solve complex problems, and what he has 258 00:24:16.190 --> 00:24:21.479 found in his research is that the more deep diversity that is represented in these groups, 259 00:24:21.479 --> 00:24:26.980 the better they are at complex problemsolving and decision making. I could, you know, talk 260 00:24:26.980 --> 00:24:33.090 to my voice runs out on that topic. And lastly, I want to nod to my colleague 261 00:24:33.090 --> 00:24:39.890 over there, who I think was the first person today to remember the issue to mention the 262 00:24:39.890 --> 00:24:45.809 issue of social justice, right, sorry we don't have time to dive into this too deeply, but 263 00:24:45.809 --> 00:24:50.940 the persistent problem of low minority representation in the library and archives workforce, and 264 00:24:50.940 --> 00:25:00.739 museums, I might say, is a product of traditional systems that were not created to advance the 265 00:25:00.739 --> 00:25:06.639 to advance people from historically or from historically underrepresented or marginalized 266 00:25:06.639 --> 00:25:13.599 communities. That's just the issue. There are systemic barriers to them doing many things, 267 00:25:13.599 --> 00:25:21.119 including entering our workforce. So I have I'll refer to maybe a couple of recent publications 268 00:25:21.119 --> 00:25:26.259 maybe a little bit later if we have time, one from Ithaca S & R, about educating 269 00:25:26.259 --> 00:25:31.259 the research library workforce and the publication that came out of the University of Maryland 270 00:25:31.259 --> 00:25:36.620 at their high school that's doing some deep assessment about workforce needs and development 271 00:25:36.620 --> 00:25:39.749 of curriculum around MLIS. [Applause] 272 00:25:39.749 --> 00:25:48.529 >> SIOBHAN REARDON: So good afternoon. Thank you for having me. I'm Siobhan Reardon, and 273 00:25:48.529 --> 00:25:55.429 I'm going to come at this a little bit differently, and I'm going to talk to you all about the 274 00:25:55.429 --> 00:26:01.359 customers we serve, because it's the customers we serve that add a tremendous amount of complexity 275 00:26:01.359 --> 00:26:06.950 for us telling library schools what it is we need because often it's really difficult 276 00:26:06.950 --> 00:26:13.740 for us to actually say, what do we need. So how do you address a profession that is 277 00:26:13.740 --> 00:26:21.129 a cradle to grave in service. How do you address a profession that crosses economic spectrum 278 00:26:21.129 --> 00:26:28.720 from poor to absolute wealth? And we have to really think about those people who are 279 00:26:28.720 --> 00:26:33.009 in our spaces. There are people in our spaces that really like to be there and want to be 280 00:26:33.009 --> 00:26:37.129 there, and there are people in our spaces that don't want to have to be there. Little 281 00:26:37.129 --> 00:26:40.870 kids whose parent has told them to go there because that's a safe place and that's where 282 00:26:40.870 --> 00:26:47.950 you have to stay until I come pick you up, or the young man or young woman that's in 283 00:26:47.950 --> 00:26:52.240 our space is because they, as part of their adjudication process, have to come in and 284 00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:57.909 have a place to work. We need to understand that the people in our 285 00:26:57.909 --> 00:27:03.940 spaces need actually the kind of spaces that are welcoming and much more accessible. We 286 00:27:03.940 --> 00:27:10.269 heard a lot about that from Ruth. We have a lot of staff that are very strong 287 00:27:10.269 --> 00:27:16.690 on book knowledge, yet have very little perspective on community engagement. And what does that 288 00:27:16.690 --> 00:27:23.499 mean? We've had to hire social workers and as we've been hearing time and time again, 289 00:27:23.499 --> 00:27:29.389 that the people in our spaces are very complex individuals, and when we think about services 290 00:27:29.389 --> 00:27:34.320 to people with disabilities, we have a tremendous amount of homelessness, particularly in our 291 00:27:34.320 --> 00:27:38.690 center city locations, and our staff are just simply not equipped to do that. You didn't 292 00:27:38.690 --> 00:27:42.830 come out of library school to worry about the homeless person in your space or the emotionally 293 00:27:42.830 --> 00:27:47.669 challenged person in your space, yet they're there and they have a right to be there, and 294 00:27:47.669 --> 00:27:52.179 so what do we have to do in order to build the capacity of our staff to still do the 295 00:27:52.179 --> 00:27:57.099 right kind of work when it comes to information services. But know that there's a very complex 296 00:27:57.099 --> 00:28:03.039 group of individuals in this space. So we have hired social workers to add to the sort 297 00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:07.389 of totality of the people that are part of our employment base, and I'm telling you, 298 00:28:07.389 --> 00:28:11.219 the social workers will come out and say to us, we spend more time coaching the staff 299 00:28:11.219 --> 00:28:16.840 than we do moving the homeless individuals in to services. And so and that's okay, and 300 00:28:16.840 --> 00:28:22.320 that's why they're there. More than 50% of our school children have, by the time they 301 00:28:22.320 --> 00:28:27.139 get to fourth grade, can't read at a fourth grade level, and so that adds another complexity 302 00:28:27.139 --> 00:28:31.219 around the relationship between the school district and the Free Library of Philadelphia, 303 00:28:31.219 --> 00:28:37.489 and particular, there's a larger conversation going around called the Campaign For Grade 304 00:28:37.489 --> 00:28:42.679 Level Reading in 157 cities across this nation have a campaign for grade level reading as 305 00:28:42.679 --> 00:28:48.029 part of this work and the Free Library Philadelphia is now the backbone agency for this work actually 306 00:28:48.029 --> 00:28:53.899 not here, but in Philadelphia, and what that means is that we're leading a partnership, 307 00:28:53.899 --> 00:29:00.259 we're leading a collaboration of over 50 partners to begin to understand what is it going to 308 00:29:00.259 --> 00:29:05.570 take for us to create a community around the support and build the scaffolding for that 309 00:29:05.570 --> 00:29:09.609 child and that child's family so that by the time they get to fourth grade, they're reading 310 00:29:09.609 --> 00:29:14.169 at a fourth grade level. It's a very complex process, but the library is sitting at the 311 00:29:14.169 --> 00:29:18.349 middle of this, and that's a good place for us to be. 312 00:29:18.349 --> 00:29:23.960 In the poorer parts of the city, we are able to connect with constituents, so let me just 313 00:29:23.960 --> 00:29:27.979 tell you, this is the hot spot conversation. So as you heard from Colin, the Free Library 314 00:29:27.979 --> 00:29:34.169 Philadelphia received a grant from the Knight foundation, and this was the pivot point for 315 00:29:34.169 --> 00:29:42.009 us because what we did was we built technology units in communitybased organizations. And 316 00:29:42.009 --> 00:29:45.619 the reason this is significant is that these were in poorer communities. That was sort 317 00:29:45.619 --> 00:29:50.419 of the criteria for us putting these technology centers there, was that the people who came 318 00:29:50.419 --> 00:29:55.989 and used the services were people who never crossed the transom of a public library. Why? 319 00:29:55.989 --> 00:30:00.580 Because they had the presumption that they needed to be literate in order to come to 320 00:30:00.580 --> 00:30:04.509 a library. Remember a lot of our infrastructure are these big a lot of stairs going into a 321 00:30:04.509 --> 00:30:10.129 temple of knowledge, and so we create this our own problems in this space. And so the 322 00:30:10.129 --> 00:30:13.470 hot spots are meant to create that boots on the ground, deep in community conversation, 323 00:30:13.470 --> 00:30:19.799 and a space and place we never thought possible, and that was the pivot point for us to say 324 00:30:19.799 --> 00:30:23.450 we need to stop waiting for people to come through our doors and we need to barge through 325 00:30:23.450 --> 00:30:29.809 theirs and create the conversation. And then similarly, and I'm forgetting forgive 326 00:30:29.809 --> 00:30:35.450 me for who has the Spell Program but we have a similar Words At Play program, and this 327 00:30:35.450 --> 00:30:40.139 is not librarians that we hired, but we hired local, we call them library coordinators, 328 00:30:40.139 --> 00:30:45.359 and they're people that come from these North Philadelphia or South Philadelphia, Southwest 329 00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:49.799 Philadelphia communities, but they are people who know the community and in order to bring 330 00:30:49.799 --> 00:30:54.190 people into our Words At Play, this is a parent that had to come with a child, we went to 331 00:30:54.190 --> 00:30:58.259 the nail salons, we went to the beauty salons and we went to the barber shops, but it's 332 00:30:58.259 --> 00:31:03.349 people who know these communities that are helping us build the skill sets of our overall 333 00:31:03.349 --> 00:31:07.960 library staff and it's not our librarians who understood, to do that is not a criticism 334 00:31:07.960 --> 00:31:12.899 of our librarians, they are practiced in a very different way. But that speaks to a very 335 00:31:12.899 --> 00:31:17.609 important point is that our librarians don't see themselves as community leaders and they 336 00:31:17.609 --> 00:31:22.169 absolutely are and I really would love the library schools to really take that on as 337 00:31:22.169 --> 00:31:28.729 to really take us from a place where we are a very passive profession to something that 338 00:31:28.729 --> 00:31:33.759 is very forward and very assertive and almost aggressive to the point where we absolutely 339 00:31:33.759 --> 00:31:39.169 are community leaders, and here's why. We have a presence, and we have a practice, and 340 00:31:39.169 --> 00:31:43.070 when you think about information literacy being almost, we're now a second generation 341 00:31:43.070 --> 00:31:48.909 of students coming through with zero information literacy skill sets, we had this conversation 342 00:31:48.909 --> 00:31:53.960 before, it's amazing how many young people are coming out of college and they really 343 00:31:53.960 --> 00:31:58.220 don't know how to dissect information. It's because of all of this lost from the early 344 00:31:58.220 --> 00:32:03.570 years. And so and we spend a lot of time with our staff. I got that. Three minutes. I guess 345 00:32:03.570 --> 00:32:08.049 very passionate about this. Can you tell? But it's really about how you move an old 346 00:32:08.049 --> 00:32:13.499 urban center, a city that has tremendous amount of capacity, and it's about how you think 347 00:32:13.499 --> 00:32:19.139 about our staff are involved, and in one of the most civically engaged city yet don't 348 00:32:19.139 --> 00:32:26.019 know how to give and deliver really good civically engaging programs, that which talk about so 349 00:32:26.019 --> 00:32:29.809 let's talk about the trouble with the school system, let's talk about the issues around 350 00:32:29.809 --> 00:32:34.419 race. Let's talk about the things that are challenging to the cities. We're in the middle 351 00:32:34.419 --> 00:32:38.101 of a mayoral race. Let's have those conversations. We were not the ones that produced the debates. 352 00:32:38.101 --> 00:32:43.419 It was other organizations who used our spaces. And, you know, it's just and I'm just going 353 00:32:43.419 --> 00:32:48.619 to circle it back to say there's a reason we have a conversation around, you know, how 354 00:32:48.619 --> 00:32:53.120 do we how do we stop being all things to all people? We can't. We can't afford it. We're 355 00:32:53.120 --> 00:32:58.619 not good at it, and so let's make let's narrow down the skill sets to say in our strategic 356 00:32:58.619 --> 00:33:03.899 plan, we said we're going to focus on five strategic areas, and the five strategic areas 357 00:33:03.899 --> 00:33:12.599 are children under five, families, people in the workforce development, people with 358 00:33:12.599 --> 00:33:16.580 services to persons with disabilities, and the small businesses and entrepreneur. The 359 00:33:16.580 --> 00:33:21.330 reasons we're doing this is that these are the people who are really exacting the high 360 00:33:21.330 --> 00:33:26.889 levels of our librarian services, and this is where the librarian really needs all of 361 00:33:26.889 --> 00:33:32.749 their skill sets so we're actually raising the librarian to work at a very high level 362 00:33:32.749 --> 00:33:37.429 and bring lots of scaffolding underneath that librarian on the community outreach. But I 363 00:33:37.429 --> 00:33:44.230 really do see the fact that as we reorganized our system I know I'm meandering, but that's 364 00:33:44.230 --> 00:33:50.369 okay. You just have to follow me somehow. But it's but we had to restructure our system 365 00:33:50.369 --> 00:33:56.339 because of the financial distress that we were in. And to understand that we broke our 366 00:33:56.339 --> 00:34:02.879 system down, we're a system of 55 units, into smaller clusters, and what are the biggest 367 00:34:02.879 --> 00:34:07.289 responsibilities of the community, of the cluster leader is to build what we call community 368 00:34:07.289 --> 00:34:12.230 councils, and this community council is made up of police, fire, sanitation, communitybased 369 00:34:12.230 --> 00:34:18.260 organizations, you name it, faithbased organizations, the schools. It is the toughest piece they 370 00:34:18.260 --> 00:34:22.429 can do all the professional development, they're really good, they can do a lot of the base 371 00:34:22.429 --> 00:34:29.110 work around management, but they cannot do this new job of creating community councils. 372 00:34:29.110 --> 00:34:33.350 They do not know how to do it. They are not community organizers, and they are not people 373 00:34:33.350 --> 00:34:37.580 who are traditionally working in partnership capacities and we need to really help figure 374 00:34:37.580 --> 00:34:48.713 that out, too. Did I do it? [Applause] 375 00:34:48.713 --> 00:34:52.480 >> BONNIE POSTLETHWAITE: Great. That was wonderful. So we'll open it up for questions. I think 376 00:34:52.480 --> 00:35:03.540 the mics are floating around. >> So I have two questions, really. The first 377 00:35:03.540 --> 00:35:04.540 one >> Name? 378 00:35:04.540 --> 00:35:12.601 >> I'm sorry. Gail Dickinson, Old Dominion University. The first one is my, as you were 379 00:35:12.601 --> 00:35:20.810 talking about the librarians at library schools produce, my area, of course, is a graduate 380 00:35:20.810 --> 00:35:24.550 associate dean and a college of education is to compare that with classroom teachers 381 00:35:24.550 --> 00:35:29.280 and classroom teachers are evaluated very strictly, have tremendous amount of pressure 382 00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:38.730 on them, but there is more or less, fairly or unfairly, a universal standard of expectations 383 00:35:38.730 --> 00:35:44.360 for what classroom teachers are supposed to do. I mean, there is the good classroom teachers 384 00:35:44.360 --> 00:35:51.100 are this and we can draw, with some variation, the box. Does that exist, my first question, 385 00:35:51.100 --> 00:35:57.040 for librarians. Is there a universal standard by what we should expect of a librarian just 386 00:35:57.040 --> 00:36:01.160 out of library school? The second one is a model that I think was 387 00:36:01.160 --> 00:36:07.622 either Tennessee or Kentucky. They presented at a conference, the State Department of Education 388 00:36:07.622 --> 00:36:16.780 had devised a formula for putting the praise and/or blame of classroom teachers on whether 389 00:36:16.780 --> 00:36:22.900 or not it was how they were prepared, or whether it was the school in which they were teaching. 390 00:36:22.900 --> 00:36:28.170 And the first year out of the preparation, it was 100% the preparation, you know, it's 391 00:36:28.170 --> 00:36:34.510 your fault, it's your great, you did a great job. But the percentage went down from the 392 00:36:34.510 --> 00:36:39.400 preparation, and up from the school in which they worked until at the end of five or ten 393 00:36:39.400 --> 00:36:45.240 years, if a teacher was not performing, the blame went back to 100% the school division 394 00:36:45.240 --> 00:36:51.800 in which they taught. So the librarians then ten years out of library school, it would 395 00:36:51.800 --> 00:36:58.130 not be, in my case, the shame or the praise for UNC Chapel Hill, it would be where I worked 396 00:36:58.130 --> 00:37:03.819 that did not continue to, so could you speak to both of those questions? 397 00:37:03.819 --> 00:37:15.390 >> DAVID LANKES: I have a definition of a universal librarian. I think what's interesting 398 00:37:15.390 --> 00:37:24.340 is in times of great stability, institutional prominence in different fields from education 399 00:37:24.340 --> 00:37:30.400 to library science to medicine, the emphasis of education on the craft is appropriate and 400 00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:35.810 makes sense, and you talk about competencies. In times of great change, particularly change 401 00:37:35.810 --> 00:37:41.580 moving from institutional focusses to personal agency, that is from hospitals to doctors, 402 00:37:41.580 --> 00:37:48.120 from the doctors to patients, from schools to teachers, when we look at changes, then 403 00:37:48.120 --> 00:37:53.030 the larger and we keep saying theory and practice. I think that's the wrong word, because it 404 00:37:53.030 --> 00:37:59.490 gets so much work. The difference between larger, deeper concepts and implementation 405 00:37:59.490 --> 00:38:06.160 of a craft, that focus has to change, and it has to move towards deeper concepts. My 406 00:38:06.160 --> 00:38:10.640 work and others here, and your work, is very much about finding what is fundamental in 407 00:38:10.640 --> 00:38:17.770 a time of change. And what I hear over and over again when I hear, is we need people 408 00:38:17.770 --> 00:38:22.520 with good people skills, but a lot of these dispositions, creativity, life long learning, 409 00:38:22.520 --> 00:38:28.480 things that are not skillsbased. And so I think that there's actually a pretty good 410 00:38:28.480 --> 00:38:32.640 agreement. What I'm amazed by in this room is I stand here and I go, you know, I remember 411 00:38:32.640 --> 00:38:36.560 six years ago when we talked about the communities or collection and people looked at us like 412 00:38:36.560 --> 00:38:41.020 we were just weird people, and I was like yep, of course. Right? That idea that we're 413 00:38:41.020 --> 00:38:44.810 moving together and pushing forward, I think it becomes important. So 414 00:38:44.810 --> 00:38:51.610 >> MARY STANSBURY: Yeah, I'll try to answer part of your questions, Gayl. I think in terms 415 00:38:51.610 --> 00:38:58.870 of that accountability, that culture of accountability that has certainly, you know, invaded, and 416 00:38:58.870 --> 00:39:06.540 is everywhere in the K12 world, I don't know if it will ever happen for us. I think I suggest 417 00:39:06.540 --> 00:39:14.400 I wonder if, in many ways, our profession has hidden behind the concept of privacy to 418 00:39:14.400 --> 00:39:20.620 avoid understanding our impact on individuals. And that's just something I've thought about 419 00:39:20.620 --> 00:39:25.060 here and there. I mean, I understand it, I certainly support privacy, but I think we've 420 00:39:25.060 --> 00:39:36.330 hidden behind it in the public library sector, perhaps. I also think that in terms of disruption, 421 00:39:36.330 --> 00:39:43.310 and I remember Siobhan and I were on a grant panel meeting together earlier this year, 422 00:39:43.310 --> 00:39:50.330 and don't tell my boss, but is the master's degree still the right container for professional 423 00:39:50.330 --> 00:39:56.961 a professional academic credential? And I wonder what is unique about the MLIS that 424 00:39:56.961 --> 00:40:01.530 means it has to be at that level? So I don't think I really answered that question but 425 00:40:01.530 --> 00:40:06.900 I want to be sure and say that. >> MARK PUENTE: I was just going to add that 426 00:40:06.900 --> 00:40:13.090 again in the academic library context with respect to, you know, rewards and that sort 427 00:40:13.090 --> 00:40:17.560 of thing, I mean, that's so deeply embedded in that local context. I mean, we have academic 428 00:40:17.560 --> 00:40:22.780 institutions that are in oneyear term appointments and then you have at the end of the spectrum, 429 00:40:22.780 --> 00:40:26.620 librarians that have faculty status that are in these rigorous, rigorous promotion and 430 00:40:26.620 --> 00:40:34.340 tenure tracks comparable to faculty, so it's so contextual and again looking at just the 431 00:40:34.340 --> 00:40:40.220 explosion of the types of roles. I think that's going to be something that is just very difficult 432 00:40:40.220 --> 00:40:43.581 to, you know, to really identify. >> SIOBHAN REARDON: And Gail I would say is 433 00:40:43.581 --> 00:40:50.550 that what we were looking for in an entry level librarian ten years ago is not what 434 00:40:50.550 --> 00:40:55.720 we're looking for in an entry level librarian now for sure, and Cindy Gibbon talked a lot 435 00:40:55.720 --> 00:41:01.230 about kind of the skill set that we would prefer to see, things like we want someone 436 00:41:01.230 --> 00:41:07.340 who is a problem solver, has budgetary skills, is a critical thinker, is a project manager. 437 00:41:07.340 --> 00:41:12.740 I mean, these are amazing, amazing, and these are skills, so and a lot of time, you know, 438 00:41:12.740 --> 00:41:17.350 we can so there's the change in the skill set because this is the kind of work that's 439 00:41:17.350 --> 00:41:22.840 we really do push out a lot of projecttype work because of the changing nature and the 440 00:41:22.840 --> 00:41:28.870 what's happening in any of our communities at any one point in time, but it's but I also 441 00:41:28.870 --> 00:41:33.930 want to say that there's a real difference between the not all librarianship is created 442 00:41:33.930 --> 00:41:44.420 equal, and so what we do is very, very different. And, you know, and that's something to have 443 00:41:44.420 --> 00:41:50.870 a conversation about, really. Do we ask IMLS to support, you know, that great big venture 444 00:41:50.870 --> 00:41:56.070 to really sort of create the concentrations? Because I think that that's going to be an 445 00:41:56.070 --> 00:41:58.901 important piece of it. I don't know if I'm addressing your question, but I do think what 446 00:41:58.901 --> 00:42:05.360 we were but I could tell you, so I'm going to hire somebody who, in the interview, comes 447 00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:10.680 across as a creative critical thinker, loves project management, but in five years, is 448 00:42:10.680 --> 00:42:16.850 that going to be what we need? Hopefully, but you never know. So I would the answer 449 00:42:16.850 --> 00:42:22.570 to your question is no, there isn't. The long way to get out no. 450 00:42:22.570 --> 00:42:27.370 >> DAVID LANKES: The other part of that is the delusion that we can prepare a librarian 451 00:42:27.370 --> 00:42:30.720 for two years at the beginning of their career for everything that they're going to experience 452 00:42:30.720 --> 00:42:35.630 until they're the director of Kansas City library with fooling fiber. When you graduated 453 00:42:35.630 --> 00:42:41.160 with your program, sir, did you spend a lot of time on how fiber installation to the internet 454 00:42:41.160 --> 00:42:44.610 was going to impact library service? >> I was a banker before. 455 00:42:44.610 --> 00:42:47.520 >> DAVID LANKES: Yeah, there we go. >> I worked for Borden. 456 00:42:47.520 --> 00:42:54.640 >> My dad did. And just before I give up the mic, there's some people on twitter that would 457 00:42:54.640 --> 00:42:59.550 be remiss if I didn't say this, which is back to the obligation, which is you guys can be 458 00:42:59.550 --> 00:43:03.420 extremely tired and it is legitimate criticism and an open conversation that we should have 459 00:43:03.420 --> 00:43:09.840 on weather our students are prepared. I am sick to death of sending brilliant students 460 00:43:09.840 --> 00:43:13.410 into the shredders of mediocrity. >> I agree. 461 00:43:13.410 --> 00:43:21.210 >> There's nothing worse. I will say that those of us who have to suffer through civil 462 00:43:21.210 --> 00:43:26.710 service, and I am alas to find a way to fund the death of civil service. I really would 463 00:43:26.710 --> 00:43:31.890 like that very much, because then that is just you know, because you can hire the most 464 00:43:31.890 --> 00:43:38.410 creative, energetic, wonderful librarian, and man, if they have the wrong manager, that 465 00:43:38.410 --> 00:43:42.890 it is a terrible, terrible it is a terrible, terrible so we work a lot on the management 466 00:43:42.890 --> 00:43:47.190 skills. But let me also say, so I don't because a lot of the library schools aren't aware 467 00:43:47.190 --> 00:43:52.470 of this is that within because we have such movement in my library system and I can't 468 00:43:52.470 --> 00:43:58.150 imagine that it's not the same in other public libraries, within 18 months to two years, 469 00:43:58.150 --> 00:44:00.670 we're taking that library student and moving them into a management. They're the head of 470 00:44:00.670 --> 00:44:05.600 a neighborhood library in a very short period of time, so the management skill sets is really 471 00:44:05.600 --> 00:44:10.740 a critical piece for us. >> Hi. So my name is Michelle. I want to start 472 00:44:10.740 --> 00:44:16.640 by asking whether or not just reflecting on the day that you thought curriculum changes 473 00:44:16.640 --> 00:44:22.970 were necessary and what those might be. I think today we heard a lot about social and 474 00:44:22.970 --> 00:44:30.540 health partnerships and services or hiring social workers. So is that something to think 475 00:44:30.540 --> 00:44:33.100 about in terms of joint programmatic activity at the university level? 476 00:44:33.100 --> 00:44:39.980 But I think my other question is kind of whether or not you see this connection and maybe a 477 00:44:39.980 --> 00:44:44.720 partnership between curriculum development at a university and graduating an MLS student 478 00:44:44.720 --> 00:44:51.040 versus the continuing Ed and kind of what's that arc and how might you see yourselves 479 00:44:51.040 --> 00:44:53.420 working together to kind of prepare these people over time as things change. 480 00:44:53.420 --> 00:45:01.090 >> DAVID LANKES: The very large answer and then I'll shut up, we right now have a commencement 481 00:45:01.090 --> 00:45:05.370 model. We begin people in their careers. We give them an engineer, bachelor's degree. 482 00:45:05.370 --> 00:45:11.750 Five years we throw them at a master's degree. Six years after that they lose track of what 483 00:45:11.750 --> 00:45:16.370 they want to be with their life and we give them a Ph.D. 484 00:45:16.370 --> 00:45:22.590 The right, yeah. The BandAid we then apply to it is continuing education, and one of 485 00:45:22.590 --> 00:45:25.690 the things that we really, you know, in New York state, to be a public librarian, you 486 00:45:25.690 --> 00:45:29.350 have to do 60 hours over five years of continuing education. That would be nice if we required 487 00:45:29.350 --> 00:45:34.370 the same thing that we require of barbers in New York state for relevance. But we need 488 00:45:34.370 --> 00:45:39.492 to move to a continuous education model where our alums teach our current students. Our 489 00:45:39.492 --> 00:45:46.340 current students teach our professors. The idea that I may not be the best person to 490 00:45:46.340 --> 00:45:55.970 do these field work, I love I'm stealing the mentoring idea. 491 00:45:55.970 --> 00:45:58.810 >> I didn't invent it. So, yeah. >> Just to address your question about partnering 492 00:45:58.810 --> 00:46:09.290 with continuing Ed, or that path as well as other programs, kind of in its beginning stages, 493 00:46:09.290 --> 00:46:13.790 we've been having some conversations with another university in Denver, Regis University, 494 00:46:13.790 --> 00:46:19.330 go Jesuits, and with their nonprofit management program, which DU is all about the forprofit 495 00:46:19.330 --> 00:46:23.740 thing because it's a private university, and so we're talking to them about is there any 496 00:46:23.740 --> 00:46:29.180 way as institutions we can share those tuition dollars which honestly, that's what drives 497 00:46:29.180 --> 00:46:36.510 our institutions. So my university, certainly student quality is big, but tuition dollars 498 00:46:36.510 --> 00:46:41.830 are more critical. It's a responsibility center management model in almost every university 499 00:46:41.830 --> 00:46:45.780 I know of now. So partnering with another institution is very challenging because that 500 00:46:45.780 --> 00:46:52.230 means those tuition dollars are split as well. But the investment in a new curriculum, additional 501 00:46:52.230 --> 00:46:56.420 faculty when it comes to public administration or nonprofit management is still, that's a 502 00:46:56.420 --> 00:47:03.530 big dollar amount that maybe that can be mitigated by a small amount of tuition dollars that 503 00:47:03.530 --> 00:47:08.550 go to Regis that come here that go to Regis. So we've been talking about that as well as 504 00:47:08.550 --> 00:47:13.819 the early childhood piece with our childhood and family folks. 505 00:47:13.819 --> 00:47:19.921 >> MARK PUENTE: I could just add again for academic libraries, I'm not certain, and I 506 00:47:19.921 --> 00:47:24.720 know there are more and more IMLS programs that are requiring experience prior to graduation, 507 00:47:24.720 --> 00:47:29.650 more and more, I really wish that maybe even for, you know, public and other, you know, 508 00:47:29.650 --> 00:47:34.230 school libraries as well that we could come to a point where a full oneyear residency 509 00:47:34.230 --> 00:47:38.140 is a requirement for entry into the profession. I mean, I wish academic libraries would make 510 00:47:38.140 --> 00:47:42.880 a commitment to that. I also think that it would be a fantastic conduit in terms of the 511 00:47:42.880 --> 00:47:50.690 diversity conversation as well because we need that level of preliminary training. And 512 00:47:50.690 --> 00:47:54.270 when we're in a marketplace where, you know, there are people applying hundreds of people 513 00:47:54.270 --> 00:47:58.950 are applying for a single, you know, entry level position and probably half of them have, 514 00:47:58.950 --> 00:48:03.070 you know, five or more years of professional experience. It's a tough time. It's a tough 515 00:48:03.070 --> 00:48:07.681 market. But, you know, I mean, people are breaking through somehow, but if they're I 516 00:48:07.681 --> 00:48:15.380 see that as an opportunity and if we're talking aspirational here, I would like to see a program 517 00:48:15.380 --> 00:48:20.990 like that funded. Yes, absolutely. >> MARY STANSBURY: Just because my role on 518 00:48:20.990 --> 00:48:26.510 the committee of accreditation, I pretty much know what every program is up to and actually 519 00:48:26.510 --> 00:48:33.300 the requirement is dropping, as is research methods. There are very few programs that 520 00:48:33.300 --> 00:48:39.330 actually require a research methods course. So the practical experience I think with the 521 00:48:39.330 --> 00:48:44.720 increase in online programs, like I can't imagine how a huge online program is going 522 00:48:44.720 --> 00:48:51.170 to be able to manage meaningful supervision of practical experience when they have people 523 00:48:51.170 --> 00:48:59.839 from all over the world. So I agree with you, but I think it's going the other way. 524 00:48:59.839 --> 00:49:05.740 >> Hi. I work for the State Library of Iowa, Iowa Library Services but I'm here representing 525 00:49:05.740 --> 00:49:10.410 the association of rural and small libraries and I'm wondering what all of you think about 526 00:49:10.410 --> 00:49:17.550 educating those librarians that are serving libraries that can't afford to pay a librarian 527 00:49:17.550 --> 00:49:22.070 with an MLS or an MLIS, or whatever. >> DAVID LANKES: And let's be honest. Every 528 00:49:22.070 --> 00:49:25.460 morning I have to stand up and look myself in the mirror and figure out if it's still 529 00:49:25.460 --> 00:49:29.780 ethical to go into my job. I think we are now officially Syracuse's most expensive LIS 530 00:49:29.780 --> 00:49:35.609 program. Simmons and I were going at it for a while, but I think we won. 531 00:49:35.609 --> 00:49:41.570 >> MARY STANSBURY: We're up there. >> DAVID LANKES: It's a fantastic question. 532 00:49:41.570 --> 00:49:45.970 And I've always said that there are three ways to become a librarian, but degree, by 533 00:49:45.970 --> 00:49:50.550 job title, which, that's the reality, as you say, or by spirit, right? There are a lot 534 00:49:50.550 --> 00:49:54.610 of people that are librarians that we just love and they just don't realize it yet. I 535 00:49:54.610 --> 00:50:01.430 think that what we have to do is as a profession, acknowledge those three, work like hell to 536 00:50:01.430 --> 00:50:07.110 get the people who became librarians by title to be proficient in our values, in our methods 537 00:50:07.110 --> 00:50:12.910 to doing that, and then what we have an obligation to do is to make sure there is value in going 538 00:50:12.910 --> 00:50:18.420 to that program for those who can afford it. Back to your social justice issue, which is 539 00:50:18.420 --> 00:50:22.430 to work to mind out ways that we can blow up a model that is based on a threecredit 540 00:50:22.430 --> 00:50:28.720 semester at a thousand dollars a credit. And I would love to say that we figured it out, 541 00:50:28.720 --> 00:50:32.580 but, you know, Harvard screwed up when they tried to do it with Mooks. That didn't work, 542 00:50:32.580 --> 00:50:39.170 so we're still trying to figure out a way to replace it, but the short answer is we 543 00:50:39.170 --> 00:50:43.580 have an obligation as LIS instructors to get into those small libraries and support them 544 00:50:43.580 --> 00:50:47.990 as much as anywhere because we're part of a profession not necessarily because we get 545 00:50:47.990 --> 00:50:51.800 a tuition dollar and so I would hope that many of our faculty, many of which here are 546 00:50:51.800 --> 00:50:56.240 great examples of it but we need more faculty to understand that that's part of their giveback 547 00:50:56.240 --> 00:50:59.390 to the profession. >> MARY STANSBURY: But I would also say you're 548 00:50:59.390 --> 00:51:04.550 bringing up a really interesting point about so what's the value of the ALAs and PLAs and 549 00:51:04.550 --> 00:51:12.180 the responsibility to support the rural library staff in their work to professionalize the 550 00:51:12.180 --> 00:51:16.490 work that they're doing because knowing that there just isn't the money to deal with it 551 00:51:16.490 --> 00:51:21.840 now so how do we then support and create an opportunity so that these folks who are doing 552 00:51:21.840 --> 00:51:28.060 really great work are acknowledged and respected in that way. I think that's really an important 553 00:51:28.060 --> 00:51:31.020 point. >> And don't we see the state libraries, they're 554 00:51:31.020 --> 00:51:34.410 doing a lot. >> DAVID LANKES: Vermont, Maine, Colorado, 555 00:51:34.410 --> 00:51:41.560 Anne Craig was up here with Illinois. The program she mentioned, it's got all three 556 00:51:41.560 --> 00:51:48.310 of those folks. >> We participated in that. 557 00:51:48.310 --> 00:51:57.980 >> DAVID LANKES: That's right. Absolutely. >> Hi there. Mark mentioned that University 558 00:51:57.980 --> 00:52:07.760 of Maryland is currently doing a series of programs on reenvisioning the MLS. Dave Lankes 559 00:52:07.760 --> 00:52:13.490 was one of our first speakers in our speaker series. We are about to release a report very 560 00:52:13.490 --> 00:52:19.340 soon about what we have found, but some of the things that we have found is that we get 561 00:52:19.340 --> 00:52:30.090 really contradicting expectations from library directors, from library schools on what constitutes 562 00:52:30.090 --> 00:52:35.330 an MLS, right? So and I sort of hear that as well during the conversation that we had 563 00:52:35.330 --> 00:52:40.910 today. I think Dave mentioned, you know, what our librarians are supposed to do everything, 564 00:52:40.910 --> 00:52:48.370 right? But one question that I have is how does how is ALA accreditation process is taking 565 00:52:48.370 --> 00:52:52.430 these changes into consideration as we move forward? 566 00:52:52.430 --> 00:52:59.440 >> MARY STANSBURY: We, at the mid winter meeting, actually, had our new accreditation standards 567 00:52:59.440 --> 00:53:04.700 approved so I encourage all of you to check those out, ALA.org/accreditation. That gets 568 00:53:04.700 --> 00:53:10.120 you to the office Web site and you'll find the new standards. So I mention that because 569 00:53:10.120 --> 00:53:15.790 within the new standards and this doesn't this next piece doesn't really represent much 570 00:53:15.790 --> 00:53:21.311 of a change, but within those standards, the way the curriculum, for example, standard 571 00:53:21.311 --> 00:53:27.990 is worded is very loose. There is not a prescribed course in, heaven forbid, cataloguing, or 572 00:53:27.990 --> 00:53:33.430 anything like that. And so the standards are actually very, very flexible because it's 573 00:53:33.430 --> 00:53:42.020 about indication, indicative rather than prescriptive. Some of the sorry I schools have not necessarily 574 00:53:42.020 --> 00:53:46.461 him, but some of the I schools have pushed back on ALA accreditation saying well, we 575 00:53:46.461 --> 00:53:52.950 educate people who are not going into libraries. Well, it's the American Library Association 576 00:53:52.950 --> 00:53:58.800 Standards For Accreditation, which to me means it is about libraries, and it's fine if a 577 00:53:58.800 --> 00:54:02.670 program has all kinds of other degrees and all kinds of other curriculum concentrations, 578 00:54:02.670 --> 00:54:09.190 but really, all ALA cares about is libraries. And I think that's appropriate. 579 00:54:09.190 --> 00:54:14.770 >> I wouldn't disagree. >> Thanks. I wanted to respond to oh, yeah, 580 00:54:14.770 --> 00:54:19.970 sorry. Thanks. I'm from the University of Tennessee, and I wanted to respond first to 581 00:54:19.970 --> 00:54:26.660 my colleague from ARSL's comment that you had made, and we've been very fortunate to 582 00:54:26.660 --> 00:54:32.070 be supported by the information technology, the rural librarian master scholarship program. 583 00:54:32.070 --> 00:54:37.920 The first time there were 16 paraprofessionals who we were able to recruit from the nine 584 00:54:37.920 --> 00:54:43.800 states in the Appalachian region, and have offered them an online distance education 585 00:54:43.800 --> 00:54:49.080 program, realtime, where they were working. They continued to be working, but in the courses 586 00:54:49.080 --> 00:54:54.230 that they were taking with us, we were getting them to develop management and I.T. products 587 00:54:54.230 --> 00:54:59.040 and deliverables during the time that they were in the program, and so it was kind of 588 00:54:59.040 --> 00:55:03.920 a winwin that they're working, and they're out the production and applications that they're 589 00:55:03.920 --> 00:55:08.330 developing, management are very much contextually grounded because they're working and they 590 00:55:08.330 --> 00:55:11.880 have that knowledge and they have that kind of information to make connections in between 591 00:55:11.880 --> 00:55:18.670 the theory and the practice. Second version as well, 13 more students were 592 00:55:18.670 --> 00:55:22.810 recruited, and now they are continuing in that process and will be completing in the 593 00:55:22.810 --> 00:55:28.980 summer. So the question on sustainability, those we are having those students of course 594 00:55:28.980 --> 00:55:33.310 they are continuing to work in those settings that they are in so they are engaging with 595 00:55:33.310 --> 00:55:38.940 their staff, and they are using some of the things that they learn in taking their communities 596 00:55:38.940 --> 00:55:44.730 and the libraries, as well as the services that they provide to them. So that's one way 597 00:55:44.730 --> 00:55:51.300 to respond to that. I had a question for the panel, and to the 598 00:55:51.300 --> 00:55:58.770 audience. I'm kind of surprised not to hear, as you mentioned about the pressures from 599 00:55:58.770 --> 00:56:05.910 the pop administration, low recruitment numbers. Many high schools have moved towards undergraduate, 600 00:56:05.910 --> 00:56:12.340 wholeheartedly taking on making full huge scale undergraduate degree programs, and that 601 00:56:12.340 --> 00:56:18.280 is, of course, having pressures on the limited staff and faculty who are involved in MLS 602 00:56:18.280 --> 00:56:24.130 training programs, and that does impact the nature of libraries, and what kind of professionals 603 00:56:24.130 --> 00:56:29.250 we are able to bring, so what is the response of the audience and the panelists in terms 604 00:56:29.250 --> 00:56:33.960 of the tendency to now are we moving towards undergraduate programs which might be more 605 00:56:33.960 --> 00:56:38.890 than libraries, information professionals and other ways that they have been articulated 606 00:56:38.890 --> 00:56:45.740 and described? Thanks. >> DAVID LANKES: The creation of the undergraduate 607 00:56:45.740 --> 00:56:50.220 program at the I school of Syracuse is probably the best thing it ever did. I was a doctoral 608 00:56:50.220 --> 00:56:56.400 student as that grew and I can tell you as a doctoral student, every year I got a little 609 00:56:56.400 --> 00:57:01.390 less attention, a little less attention, so, you know, this is what you end up with an 610 00:57:01.390 --> 00:57:05.820 undergraduate program. But I'll tell you, the good and the bad. The 611 00:57:05.820 --> 00:57:11.000 good is actually it gets you more resources. It gets you tied directly into where a lot 612 00:57:11.000 --> 00:57:15.470 of administrators pay a lot of attention, which is at undergraduate enrollment, much 613 00:57:15.470 --> 00:57:20.030 more than they do at the graduate level and at largely, particular research university. 614 00:57:20.030 --> 00:57:25.910 It brought in a great diversity to the people within the school. It brought in a lot of 615 00:57:25.910 --> 00:57:31.770 opportunities and changes. So on the whole, I'm a big fan. It brought about two students 616 00:57:31.770 --> 00:57:36.690 every three years into the LIS program. What they do is they go into a masters and information 617 00:57:36.690 --> 00:57:41.150 management. Why? Because our undergraduate is in undergraduate information technology 618 00:57:41.150 --> 00:57:45.580 and management so there's a clear track into the graduate level. 619 00:57:45.580 --> 00:57:51.220 I'm not sure I could recruit undergraduates directly. We get some and they're brilliant 620 00:57:51.220 --> 00:57:54.820 and they're wonderful and a lot of them don't understand it but it comes back to the idea 621 00:57:54.820 --> 00:58:04.350 that they still identify a library and a building. And so could we do better? I'm not sure. But 622 00:58:04.350 --> 00:58:08.950 I can tell you, having undergraduates around where our library science students are doing 623 00:58:08.950 --> 00:58:14.030 information literacy instruction or working, I mean, you know, you want to work with resistant 624 00:58:14.030 --> 00:58:22.450 populations to instruction. Undergraduates would be about the number one group. And so 625 00:58:22.450 --> 00:58:27.300 by and large, I mean, I know, I was the one who talked about this fissure between the 626 00:58:27.300 --> 00:58:31.220 information and library of science. That's not because of undergraduate programs. It's 627 00:58:31.220 --> 00:58:38.220 because of opportunities that are being that they want our students. That leads to hiring 628 00:58:38.220 --> 00:58:42.700 faculty that can prepare them and those faculty get farther and farther afield, and we have 629 00:58:42.700 --> 00:58:47.690 not done a sufficient job, I'm just going to go ahead and claim that, thank you, sufficient 630 00:58:47.690 --> 00:58:54.340 job of inculturating our faculties into our core values. It becomes the users are important. 631 00:58:54.340 --> 00:58:59.210 It doesn't become the users are important and ethics are important and that's why privacy 632 00:58:59.210 --> 00:59:03.100 is important, and that's how we found this kind of thing, and so we need to do a lot 633 00:59:03.100 --> 00:59:07.800 more work to fuse these two together. The future of an I school is an I school, but 634 00:59:07.800 --> 00:59:12.860 it's with library science and information science being indistinguishable, not in a 635 00:59:12.860 --> 00:59:22.570 bunch of parallel silos. >> I'd like to make sure that we address the 636 00:59:22.570 --> 00:59:31.070 question that IMLS has for us, which is how can they fund change in this arena of library 637 00:59:31.070 --> 00:59:39.940 school curriculum and recruitment into our profession. So any thoughts. 638 00:59:39.940 --> 00:59:43.280 >> MARY STANSBURY: Do you want us to respond, Bonnie? 639 00:59:43.280 --> 00:59:48.260 >> BONNIE POSTLETHWAITE: I don't care. >> MARY STANSBURY: Well, I guess the question 640 00:59:48.260 --> 00:59:55.130 of the container, the best container or the most useful container for indicating that 641 00:59:55.130 --> 00:59:59.220 someone is prepared to enter the profession, whether it that be a bachelor's degree, a 642 00:59:59.220 --> 01:00:05.720 master's degree, certificate, trying to understand what is valued about advanced education in 643 01:00:05.720 --> 01:00:11.990 library science, valued to the community, valued to the profession, that question. It 644 01:00:11.990 --> 01:00:17.900 would be interesting to fund the second phase of a pilot project of a clinical model with 645 01:00:17.900 --> 01:00:24.950 academic libraries and a library science program just kidding that would be interesting a little 646 01:00:24.950 --> 01:00:32.940 selfserving there. But I also wonder if this question of interdisciplinary might also be 647 01:00:32.940 --> 01:00:40.160 one of the guidelines, I believe I'm right, with the present the present guidelines are 648 01:00:40.160 --> 01:00:46.080 limited to Ph.D programs and library or information science, and not in for example, in my example 649 01:00:46.080 --> 01:00:52.540 that I'll give, research methods and statistics, with a concentration in assessment or a concentration 650 01:00:52.540 --> 01:00:57.200 in library science, or a concentration in institutional research, so that one guideline 651 01:00:57.200 --> 01:01:02.860 I think might be an interesting one to look at in terms of broadening who we get with 652 01:01:02.860 --> 01:01:08.730 the Ph.D. >> SIOBHAN REARDON: So I said it before. I 653 01:01:08.730 --> 01:01:13.250 think one of the things that I would love to see is a conversation or to develop the 654 01:01:13.250 --> 01:01:18.330 opportunity to create specializations. As I said, there's, you know, all librarianship 655 01:01:18.330 --> 01:01:24.330 is not created equal, and so I'd love for the to see if there's the ability to create 656 01:01:24.330 --> 01:01:28.240 concentrations, whether you want to become a public librarian or an academic librarian 657 01:01:28.240 --> 01:01:33.310 or a school media specialist. So there's very different work that occurs in all of these 658 01:01:33.310 --> 01:01:39.710 environments, and specialty librarians, I don't know how much that the strength of that 659 01:01:39.710 --> 01:01:45.110 I guess the medical librarians for sure. But I just think that it's because of the 660 01:01:45.110 --> 01:01:49.750 concentration and what the expectation is when those students come out that there's 661 01:01:49.750 --> 01:01:55.450 strength, and it just helps. Not only does it help the schools, but it also certainly 662 01:01:55.450 --> 01:02:00.310 helps the practitioners in the process. >> DAVID LANKES: Can I push back just a little 663 01:02:00.310 --> 01:02:01.310 bit on that? >> SIOBHAN REARDON: Feel free. 664 01:02:01.310 --> 01:02:08.790 >> DAVID LANKES: I'm not convinced that the difference between a small academic liberal 665 01:02:08.790 --> 01:02:15.000 arts college with one librarian in it, that the difference between them and Harvard is 666 01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:23.030 a less difference than a small academic library and a small public library and a small community 667 01:02:23.030 --> 01:02:28.630 college. And I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure we know what those divides 668 01:02:28.630 --> 01:02:33.700 are. And one thing that I saw recently is, you know, we have ARL talking about information 669 01:02:33.700 --> 01:02:38.980 literacy standards. We have ASL that's been talking about them for 20 years. We have public 670 01:02:38.980 --> 01:02:43.320 libraries that are now realizing that what they've been doing all this team now as this 671 01:02:43.320 --> 01:02:46.580 phrase called information literacy, is they continue to segment and silo, what we're 672 01:02:46.580 --> 01:02:52.930 going to end up with is I'm a huge fan of thinking librarians, that specialized, so 673 01:02:52.930 --> 01:02:59.880 understand I just don't know if we have the right dividing lines for those specializations 674 01:02:59.880 --> 01:03:02.570 yet. >> SIOBHAN REARDON: So that's the funding. 675 01:03:02.570 --> 01:03:04.710 >> DAVID LANKES: Yes, we should be funded for that. 676 01:03:04.710 --> 01:03:08.730 >> SIOBHAN REARDON: Absolutely. That's what we need is the examination of the possibilities 677 01:03:08.730 --> 01:03:13.750 or, you know, as we talked about, the success or the challenges to that opportunity, but 678 01:03:13.750 --> 01:03:20.490 I do think not to study it or not so I came out of library school in 2005 and I became 679 01:03:20.490 --> 01:03:25.460 the director of the Westchester Library System so I took a class, and I took a children's 680 01:03:25.460 --> 01:03:29.150 literacy class and I took everything that had absolutely nothing to do with the job 681 01:03:29.150 --> 01:03:35.131 that I took, but it was really fun and expensive, but 682 01:03:35.131 --> 01:03:41.670 >> MARY STANSBURY: I would add to we hear about I hear a lot about especially for academic 683 01:03:41.670 --> 01:03:47.210 librarians and school librarians and sometimes it's by state credentialing expectations, 684 01:03:47.210 --> 01:03:54.440 people who know how to teach. I also don't know how to prepare someone to diagnose on 685 01:03:54.440 --> 01:04:01.870 a oneonone basis a patrons understanding of, let's say, a particular technology. How do 686 01:04:01.870 --> 01:04:06.250 you do that? How do you know where to start with a patron who comes up to you in the middle 687 01:04:06.250 --> 01:04:15.260 of the stack saying, how do I use this application. And we don't we don't teach our librarians 688 01:04:15.260 --> 01:04:19.900 how to instruct in that oneonone level. And so how do we do that? That would be another 689 01:04:19.900 --> 01:04:22.760 thing. >> DAVID LANKES: My only comment is that IMLS 690 01:04:22.760 --> 01:04:29.030 wields a disproportionate sway in this field. I didn't say a bad one. I think it's a very 691 01:04:29.030 --> 01:04:35.390 good one. But when you talk about specializations, there are online programs today because IMLS 692 01:04:35.390 --> 01:04:41.460 decided we can say they're panels, but let's say the IMLS process decided that online education 693 01:04:41.460 --> 01:04:47.180 was good. There are certificates and digital librarianship of which we just killed one, 694 01:04:47.180 --> 01:04:53.190 because that was important. There are now in data curation. I am a huge fan of IMLS 695 01:04:53.190 --> 01:04:58.970 and part of the reason I'm a huge fan of IMLS is that you have managed to take a relatively 696 01:04:58.970 --> 01:05:04.020 small discretionary I mean in federal terms, you're taking an itty, bitty, tiny little 697 01:05:04.020 --> 01:05:11.130 rounding error of discretionary research funding and shaped a profession, and this meeting 698 01:05:11.130 --> 01:05:15.780 that we're here, hearing about progressive librarianship, hearing about community orientation, 699 01:05:15.780 --> 01:05:20.490 hearing about diversity is important, hearing about all of these things and bringing it 700 01:05:20.490 --> 01:05:27.361 across library type, is a decision, and it's a decision that shapes curriculum. It's a 701 01:05:27.361 --> 01:05:32.150 decision that shapes programs, it's a decision that shapes research agenda, it's a decision 702 01:05:32.150 --> 01:05:38.640 that shapes lives. And so what I would tell you is whatever you choose, because you've 703 01:05:38.640 --> 01:05:43.340 been very active, and I have no fault with the with what you've been doing in shaping 704 01:05:43.340 --> 01:05:50.390 curriculum, but to be well aware that you are shaping curriculum, and that the good 705 01:05:50.390 --> 01:05:56.270 news is I think you've been doing it in a very positive, progressive manner, and I would 706 01:05:56.270 --> 01:05:59.530 just encourage you to continue in a positive, progressive manner. 707 01:05:59.530 --> 01:06:05.170 >> MARK PUENTE: I'd like to add that when I referred to that data point that I think 708 01:06:05.170 --> 01:06:11.510 in the last five years, only 57% of all position descriptions posted on our Web site has the 709 01:06:11.510 --> 01:06:20.510 MLS as a requirement or equivalence as a requirement, so there's that doesn't indicate in any way 710 01:06:20.510 --> 01:06:24.630 how many people actually with MLIS has moved into those positions that didn't require the 711 01:06:24.630 --> 01:06:29.870 MLIS, so I will say that, but I would think for our community well, I think for the profession, 712 01:06:29.870 --> 01:06:36.380 I think it is it would be a useful exercise to research and examine those folks who are 713 01:06:36.380 --> 01:06:41.369 coming into the profession outside of the traditional MLIS training and to figure out 714 01:06:41.369 --> 01:06:46.660 how to instill those core values. Is there a way to engage MLIS programs in their training 715 01:06:46.660 --> 01:06:51.690 and their development that doesn't necessarily end, you know, the final product isn't necessarily 716 01:06:51.690 --> 01:06:56.359 an MLIS but that will make them more effective in that research intensive environment or 717 01:06:56.359 --> 01:07:00.049 whatever your local, you know, library environment so I think there's an opportunity there. 718 01:07:00.049 --> 01:07:04.780 >> DAVID LANKES: There's a comment from twitter in how well those folks do once they get in 719 01:07:04.780 --> 01:07:17.589 there. I'm just repeating the comment, which I thought would be an interesting question. 720 01:07:17.589 --> 01:07:20.890 >> To the first floor, and you'll see that right next to the gallery where the eminent 721 01:07:20.890 --> 01:07:27.500 domain exhibit that you usually look at, you'll see we're about to create a computer area, 722 01:07:27.500 --> 01:07:31.420 and you'll see some pictures of it. And the people that we're going to have management 723 01:07:31.420 --> 01:07:35.400 manage it are the rest of our computers, if you look at the third floor, the fourth floor 724 01:07:35.400 --> 01:07:41.390 today, it's reference librarians who are managing that area, reference librarians who are asking, 725 01:07:41.390 --> 01:07:48.200 what's or answering, sorry, what's a URL question, how do I log on, how do I get a Gmail account 726 01:07:48.200 --> 01:07:54.100 kinds of questions, which is a very high percentage of our reference questions down there, that 727 01:07:54.100 --> 01:07:58.830 the highest, of course, number of questions, reference questions, highest percentages is 728 01:07:58.830 --> 01:08:04.349 where is the bathroom. >> I thought it was did you find a thumb drive. 729 01:08:04.349 --> 01:08:10.200 >> Exactly. And so we're going to and I learned this, I think I hope I'm right about this 730 01:08:10.200 --> 01:08:14.500 when I first went to the Seattle library and I saw a big place on the third or fourth floor 731 01:08:14.500 --> 01:08:18.619 where they've got massive number of computers and I went up to the desk and I asked them 732 01:08:18.619 --> 01:08:23.210 who they were, who the people at the desk were and they were part of the I.T. department 733 01:08:23.210 --> 01:08:28.549 of the Seattle Public Library, not part of the reference department. And the people we've 734 01:08:28.549 --> 01:08:34.130 hired are not part of RIT department, but they're I.T.trained professionals who can 735 01:08:34.130 --> 01:08:39.940 help people do what they do transactionally on computers, and my point there is that I 736 01:08:39.940 --> 01:08:46.049 mean it's a point that all of you have been making, but I think there's a huge change 737 01:08:46.049 --> 01:08:53.799 in who we are, and much of it is driven by technology, and I think it's that we have 738 01:08:53.799 --> 01:08:58.809 been very slow, library schools, of course, have been slow, but there are plenty of courses 739 01:08:58.809 --> 01:09:05.889 about this, but that's not what's valued in a library school, and maybe for good reason. 740 01:09:05.889 --> 01:09:11.900 But if computers are a huge percentage of what we do, then we have to have I.T. professionals 741 01:09:11.900 --> 01:09:17.540 running that part of our operation. And I would say, and I want to connect this to a 742 01:09:17.540 --> 01:09:24.429 slightly larger comment, or a slightly larger issue that kind of United States, David, what 743 01:09:24.429 --> 01:09:31.659 you were saying about how we call our customers, patrons, whatever, and you weren't talking 744 01:09:31.659 --> 01:09:37.489 just about library, you were talking about library school, but and what Siobhan was saying 745 01:09:37.489 --> 01:09:42.739 about engagement, civic engagement and public engagement, I think that it is a mistake to 746 01:09:42.739 --> 01:09:48.480 think that there is one word to describe the people who use libraries. Every once in a 747 01:09:48.480 --> 01:09:53.759 while I do use the user word and I get, why, you don't like it, but in our transactional 748 01:09:53.759 --> 01:09:58.760 computer areas, it is actually functionally what's going on, and so it's useful to describe 749 01:09:58.760 --> 01:10:05.500 it accurately. But I like words like patron for certain parts of what we do. I like the 750 01:10:05.500 --> 01:10:09.889 word customer because I find that reference librarians typically have not been trained 751 01:10:09.889 --> 01:10:15.849 in customer service, and need to be. I like the word "Citizen" periodically. I think citizen 752 01:10:15.849 --> 01:10:20.840 engagement again, I think Siobhan may have used that word. I like the word "Neighbor," 753 01:10:20.840 --> 01:10:24.909 which I think one of used, which is a word that I haven't thought a lot about but I think 754 01:10:24.909 --> 01:10:31.289 that's a great word, and I think there are a lot of different ways that we and that may 755 01:10:31.289 --> 01:10:36.639 be the lesson, I think, of what needs to go on a library school. What needs to go on in 756 01:10:36.639 --> 01:10:42.429 libraries, and maybe a little bit what needs to go on in our cities is to rethink the people 757 01:10:42.429 --> 01:10:46.821 who are streaming through any public institution, but we're probably the best of the public 758 01:10:46.821 --> 01:10:53.230 institutions in this regard, and discriminate in positive ways to what those people are 759 01:10:53.230 --> 01:10:57.389 doing in your library, who they are in order to serve them better. 760 01:10:57.389 --> 01:11:03.659 >> DAVID LANKES: And I would agree. My issue with patron, member, user, et cetera, is what 761 01:11:03.659 --> 01:11:09.429 we call them amongst ourselves I think sets a terminology. In other words, when I teach 762 01:11:09.429 --> 01:11:15.749 a class about "The user" generically, I think it sets a social construct that I'm not necessarily 763 01:11:15.749 --> 01:11:21.010 happy with. But in terms of when you are part of your community, you learn names. I mean, 764 01:11:21.010 --> 01:11:24.989 I personally like a name called David when I go into a library, right? 765 01:11:24.989 --> 01:11:29.301 But I'll tell you, the number one question I'm asked these days, particularly of reference 766 01:11:29.301 --> 01:11:34.389 desk is retasking, is the idea we're not getting that many questions, and I love the fact that 767 01:11:34.389 --> 01:11:39.380 it doesn't turn in to yay, we can lay off librarians, but what should they be doing 768 01:11:39.380 --> 01:11:45.590 now, and for me the future of reference is instruction. Reference interview is just an 769 01:11:45.590 --> 01:11:51.199 instructional session. It's the same general sense of learning and such. And so I very 770 01:11:51.199 --> 01:11:56.090 much respect, and the comments before about needing to bring in other folks, but I ought 771 01:11:56.090 --> 01:12:01.510 to make sure that we don't tie our hands behind our back as a profession and say what you 772 01:12:01.510 --> 01:12:07.729 were hired at 30 years is what you can only do. We need to make sure and by the way, David, 773 01:12:07.729 --> 01:12:11.429 when someone said we should have a cage match, I'm going to give him a little ammunition. 774 01:12:11.429 --> 01:12:17.199 What we as information, library schools, do really poorly is after they leave our building, 775 01:12:17.199 --> 01:12:22.999 and what we need, and there's so much continuing education, the problem we have is not more 776 01:12:22.999 --> 01:12:30.099 continuing education. The problem we need is coherent and coordinated continuing education 777 01:12:30.099 --> 01:12:34.810 that is targeted. And if we can play a role in that, and I think we can, among other, 778 01:12:34.810 --> 01:12:40.420 IMLS sponsored something called the Salisbury Curriculum, all these things, so I think there 779 01:12:40.420 --> 01:12:44.510 is chance to do it but point well taken. >> BONNIE POSTLETHWAITE: I think we're about 780 01:12:44.510 --> 01:12:48.079 at the end. Is there any final comment from anyone? 781 01:12:48.079 --> 01:12:55.630 >> Well, may I just say as a librarian, not as an IMLS representative, I do think it goes 782 01:12:55.630 --> 01:12:59.520 back to this whole idea of values, you know, that so many people have mentioned, and, you 783 01:12:59.520 --> 01:13:03.780 know, I think we find the I.T. professionals that choose to work in libraries rather than 784 01:13:03.780 --> 01:13:08.510 in financial institutions, where they could make three times as much and get a bonus that's 785 01:13:08.510 --> 01:13:14.389 more than my annual salary, you know, it comes back to they want to work here because of 786 01:13:14.389 --> 01:13:21.420 the type of work that we do, the service that we do. 787 01:13:21.420 --> 01:13:24.949 >> BONNIE POSTLETHWAITE: Okay. Thank you.