Accidental information professionals: Pathways to selecting our courses

http://www.alia.org.au/ausfavlibrarian/

Gaby Haddow

 Why do people choose to become information professionals? This question is important to educators and to the profession more widely. For educators, it relates to how we attract students and, for the profession, it is associated with perceptions of information professionals and the value afforded to our role by parent organisations and the community. 

One of the biggest information studies schools in the United Kingdom set out to discover the career history and motivations behind their students’ enrolment in undergraduate and postgraduate courses. They found that many students described the pathway to information studies as circuitous and often related to prior experience. A love of books is still important as is the desire to work in a ‘helping’ profession. 

Using focus groups to gather their information, Simon and Taylor (2011) used qualitative methods to report their results. According to the researchers, many students had ended up enrolled in information studies ‘accidentally’.  Returning to the workforce after having a family or finding previous jobs unfulfilling were cited as reasons for turning to information studies. But importantly, this decision was influenced strongly by their experience working in an information service; a feature common to students at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.  Some students felt they were “born librarians”. Although the surveyed students recognised that they needed to be “multi-functioning” in an information environment steeped in ICT, many still reported a love of books led them to information work. This motivation was connected to a more general notion about the profession: that the work involves helping others to research and learn.
 
When the students were asked why they had decided to enrol in their degree, the students (particularly those who had been working in an information service for some time) described a feeling that their studies contributed to gaining confidence and enhancing their self-worth. For example, one student is quoted as saying “I want to do it for myself … I feel I’m capable of more than I’m currently doing”. In addition and connected, was the belief that they would advance their careers on completion of the degree and that the perceptions of their role in the workplace would improve with the professional status gained by a degree.
 
Some of the conclusions from the Aberystwyth study are supported by a recent Australian report Re-conceptualising and Re-positioning Australian Library and Information Science Education for the Twenty-first Century. Combes and others discussed the report’s findings for information studies students and new graduates in their paper at the 2011 International Association of School Libraries conference. They note that 50% of current students are already working in the library and information sector and one of their reasons for enrolling in a degree was to get the piece of paper that would qualify them for a library job. Encouragingly, there was a sense of optimism about the future of the profession.
 
How can the profession and educators use these research findings to attract students to information studies courses? ‘Accidentally’ arriving at a decision to become an information professional doesn’t suggest many strategies for marketing and ‘working with e-books’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it (if we were to be honest about the nature of materials that our profession now manages). However, motivations relating to helping people could provide a direction for promotion and the fact that many students had previous experience in information services indicates that publicity about degree courses may be useful in those workplaces.


Simon, Anoush and Marianne Taylor. 2011. “Career History and Motivations for Choosing LIS: A Case Study at Aberystwyth University.” Library Review 60: 803-815.

Combes, Barbara, Jo Hanisch, Mary Carroll, Hilary Hughes and Aliese Millington. 2011. “Are We There Yet? Students Have Their Say about Library and Information Science Education in Australia and Twenty-first Century Learning.” Paper presented at the International Association of School Libraries 40th Annual Conference, Kingston, Jamaica, August 7-11. [This paper is drawn from the findings of the Re-conceptualising and Re-positioning Australian Library and Information Science Education for the Twenty-first Century report]

This article first appeared in the InCite, April 2013

Gaby Haddow is Chair of the ALIA Research Committee, Dept. of Information Studies, Curtin University

Persuasive Technology

Suzana Sukovic

Earlier this week Sydney was a gathering place for participants in the 8th International Conference on Persuasive Technology. I saw their announcement on a mailing list and decided to send a last minute one day registration. Since the organisers were CSIRO and NICTA, I expected highly technological talk, but hoped that the focus on behaviour and persuasion, in combination with announced multidisciplinarity, would make the proceedings less opaque to the unitiated. What did I know? As promised in announcements, the conference was truly multidisciplinary with lots of attention given to human behaviour, choice-making and the meaning of the word “persuasion”. Unlike other similar gatherings, no one even whispered the F word (“fluff”).  Papers presented a rich tapestry of ideas and perspectives from discussions about ethics of persuasion, possibilities to use lingering feelings after confronting computer games to promote reflection to considerations of factors influencing health-related decisions, to name some. The official part of the program on the day finished with a panel discussion about games and gamification. Proceedings of this interesting conference are available from Springer. Workshop proceedings are also online.

Attending events in other disciplines or areas outside one’s immediate professional circle is always invigorating, not only as a source of new ideas and perspectives, but also as an opportunity to gather some observations about group behaviours and topics of interest. I left the Persuasive Technology conference with two observations I’d like to share.

The first is that new fields arising from creative applications of technology inevitably deal with issues of naming. How do we call what we are doing? What is the implication of words we are using? How do we define our area in relation to neighbouring disciplines? These are the persuasive questions for those who work in the field of persuasive technology – exactly the same questions we hear at other gatherings where people define a new area of interest arising from application of computers in existing fields such as the digital humanities, computer art, and library and information studies.

The second observation is more a reminder how refreshing it is to step out of the confines of own discipline and culture. After attending a number of discipline-specific, predominantly monocultural conferences with a clear academia-profession divide, it was a breath of fresh air to be at a small gathering representing a variety of professional and academic backgrounds where people spoke English in different accents and occasionally chatted in other languages. Diversity not only makes it more interesting but, in my mind, also adds considerably to the credibility. When a topic is discussed by people representing a variety of perspectives, there is a better chance that relevant issues are covered and major biases avoided. I am not aware of anyone at the conference representing a LIS point of view, but I am sure that with our knowledge of how to present information and design electronic environments, we would have something to say about persuasive technology.

Dr Suzana Sukovic has positions in a high school and university. She usually enjoys when birds of different feathers flock together.

LARK brings the column LIS:Investigations

LARK is proud to announce that it will publish the latest articles from the column LIS: Investigations Where ALIA’s Research Committee brings you news from the world of library and information services research. The column is published in InCite, the news magazine of the Australian Library and Information Association.

The first article in the series is written by Janine Schmidt. Janine is a recently announced Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia. She was awarded the honour for significant service to the promotion of library services and information sciences, particularly through the development of electronic access initiatives. 

Taking a Tablet: or Popping a Pill: the impact of tablets on future library services

Janine Schmidt

Rethinking reference and instruction with tablets. Edited by Rebecca K. Miller, Carolyn Meier and Heather Moorefield-Lang. Library Technology Reports, vol. 48 (8) Nov/Dec 2012
 
ALA (American Library Association) Techsource has consistently provided sound assessments of developing information technologies and their potential applications in libraries. Its offerings include a blog; Smart Libraries Newsletter; the Tech Set series containing advice and practical tips on topics ranging from cloud computing to mobile applications in libraries; and Library Technology Reports. 

Ancient libraries collected and organized clay tablets. Today’s libraries seek to support the rapidly growing computer tablet ownership within our community and must respond to new circumstances with new services. The December 2012 issue of Library Technology Reports examines the use of tablets and includes articles referring to roving librarians, partnerships with teaching faculty, mobile learning applications, and the use of tablets in collaborative work experiences. 

Trials and projects using tablets or other mobile devices in varying contexts are described. Work at various universities is outlined. Most articles refer to the need to train librarians in the use of mobile devices, emphasizing the importance of cross-collaboration in the training. Workshops for librarians and users described address issues of managing content and new ways of searching for information through voice, visual representation, and QR codes. A trial of IPads in the University of the Pacific at the Reference Desk is deemed a success, although there were issues with interoperability and interconnectivity. 

The more interesting articles in the issue focus on the use of mobile devices  by “roving librarians”. Tablets (IPads and Androids)  were given to all subject librarians in one British university. The librarians were sent out to visit specific meeting places like coffee shops and the Student Union and to particular working spaces at announced times. A marketing campaign based on a popular martini advertisement was developed to promote the service. Advice and assistance in accessing e-books, e-journals and websites were provided to staff and students, either through appointments or through drop-in encounters. Some librarians embraced the new approach with enthusiasm; others were reticent.  A quick survey showed that 86% of students were more likely to use the library’s physical and virtual resources after the experience. The project provided considerable information to the librarians about their users’ information-seeking habits and raised the profile of the librarians, leading to further activity. 

Medical librarians have for many years been supporting evidence-based-practice and providing a variety of information sources to support clinical work and observations. Several trials have used mobile devices as part of this practice and an interesting approach at the University of Illinois Medical Center is described.  The librarian joined the team of physicians and students for rounds in a paediatric unit and used an IPad to gain quick and easy access to information. The National Library of Medicine’s online gallery of mobile applications was used, as well as other specialist point of care medical applications. The program was considered effective by all involved and has led to improved patient care and provision of library medical information services. 

Of significant interest is an article on Virginia Tech’s IPad loan program with its art and architecture program. M-learning as a concept has been about for almost 2 decades. The IPad facilitates both the production of content and its consumption.  It is possible to link learning with information resource access in a way which is effective for student learning and the library is able to support anytime anyplace service delivery. Opportunities are limitless for some of these uses.

This issue of Library Technology Reports is of significant interest. The words reference and instruction themselves need rethinking. They are arcane and outdated in the services that libraries can provide to today’s users. Perhaps popping a pill will eliminate them from our vocabulary, imbue us with new ideas and provide us with the energy to ensure that tablets are used to the fullest extent to provide services appropriate to today’s and the next generations.  

This article first appeared in InCite, March 2013 

Janine Schmidt is Director, Mukurta Advisory

International tests and multiculturalism with a sprinkle of evidence

Suzana Sukovic

In the wake of the latest international testing results (TIMSS, PIRLS) the Australian media is struggling to provide an explanation as to why Australian students are not rating very high in maths, science and reading. International tests like these are important and relevant because they are indicators of how we measure up with the rest of the world but, like any test, TIMSS and PIRLS should be taken with a big grain of salt. Even if they were the best measure of students’ achievement in tested areas, they don’t consider a number of factors such as creativity and innovation potential, which may influence individual and national achievement over a period of time. While keeping this in mind, I read the test reports with great interest looking for evidence to inform my professional practice. The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is coming at the right time for our library as we are considering how to revamp reading programs for next year. However, this blog post is not about a thoughtful interpretation of test results. Quite the opposite – it is about first responses in the media and how first interpretations of test results are becoming a test of evidence-based practice in their own right.

The Other

Listening to recent discussions, it appears that multiculturalism has a lot to answer for when it comes to education. At an educational conference in Sydney, a keynote speaker said Finnish successes in educational testing are understandable considering that Finland isn’t a culturally diverse country and has a strong work ethic. This statement echoes similar claims by American and Australian educators posted on social media. The first media reports about the most recent TIMSS and PIRLS results continue in the same vein.  Media analysis includes scenes from classrooms full of non-Caucasian children followed by explanations that, unlike countries like Japan, Australia is a multicultural nation so its education can’t be measured in the same way (ABC 7.30 Report, 12 December).

Our sense of what the hierarchy is in the league of nations is shattered. It seems particularly difficult to accept that Australia is in the same category with some nations that don’t appear particularly appealing to Australian reporters. For example, “The Daily Telegraph” wrote on 13 December: “Two startling new global studies have revealed our students have slipped down the international learning ladder to perform on a par with Eastern European minnows Lithuania, Bulgaria and Poland”. “The Daily Telegraph” editorial on the same day pointed out that some countries emerging behind the “iron curtain” developed their education fast and are now on par with Australia: “Education standards have vastly improved across the former communist bloc, to the point where many Australian students are being matched or beaten by students from what were previously considered backwaters”.

A sprinkle of evidence

When we deal with international comparisons, it’s worth remembering that our self-evident truths may not hold once we cross the border. Let’s look at some evidence in reverse order! I haven’t sought any comparative test data from the cold war era but, believe it or not, a number of countries from the former Eastern bloc claim that their educational standards have slipped since they’ve started embracing Western values. As for “minnows” (let’s assume it referred to the size of mentioned countries), the population of Poland is larger than that of Australia.

More serious and more damaging are suggestions that multiculturalism or multiethnicity is to blame for Australia’s inadequate test results. The fact is that some multi-ethnical countries such as Canada and England achieved much better results than Australia. Canadian results are particularly relevant considering a number of similarities with Australia.

Another question concerns a relationship between ethnicity and test scores. The language spoken at home is presumably an important factor influencing test results. According to the report PIRLS 2011: Canada in context (p.39),  26 per cent of Canadian students didn’t speak the test language at home, which is similar to the international average. The number of Australian Year 4 students who didn’t speak the test language at home was actually smaller – 21 per cent (ACER's reports Australian Results TIMMS and PIRLS). Australian and Canadian reports both indicate that students who spoke the test language at home achieved higher reading results than those who didn’t, but the gap is smaller for Canadian students. Why this is the case isn’t clear, but answers may be counter-intuitive to many Australians. Research into bilingualism confirms the rule in language development “strong first language - strong every other language”. Canada’s reputation in supporting bilingualism may be the case in point.

The relationship between ethnicity and reading results is far from clear, particularly considering the significance of other factors such as socio-economic status, living in rural areas, quality of early childhood education and parents’ influence, to name some. In PISA test the first generation of Australian immigrants demonstrated significantly better digital reading literacy than both Australian-born and foreign-born students. Students from non-English speaking homes were represented more at the bottom of the scale. However, high achievers in reading were coming equally from English and non-English speaking homes (Preparing Australian students for the digital world, p. 32). Simplistic explanations won’t go far in clarifying the results. Like in other affluent countries, Australian immigrants are likely to be better educated than native-born citizens (Degrees of mobility, The Economist). Studies repeatedly show that immigrant parents highly value education and encourage children to obtain university degrees, a contributing factor to students’ academic achievement. More relevant in Australian society are questions about the details of complex influences rather than the sweeping statements we often hear in the media. At this early stage, explanations of the test results are saying more about our understanding of other cultures and the global scene on which we compete than fostering deeper understanding.

Opportunities

If it takes a whole village to raise a child, it certainly takes a whole country to educate one. Whatever the meaning of current results may be, I believe that young people in Australia have one significant advantage over many counterparts across the globe – their bad starts and missed chances can be reversed, they have more opportunities throughout their lives. Over the coming weeks and months, a thoughtful analysis may provide some pointers on how education, and the library and information sector can use international studies to inform its practice. A quick read assures me that librarians will find evidence in support of our position as key providers of opportunities for lifelong learning and intellectual growth. I believe that as a profession we are well positioned to look far beyond the national borders as well to make sure that historical and national memories are kept alive.

Thanks to Alycia Bailey and Katherine Rogerson for their comments about this blog post!
The photograph by Hannah Berekoven, student at St.Vincent's College, Potts Point.

This post also appears at the SVC's National Year of Reading blog.

Dr Suzana Sukovic is Head of the Learning Resource Centre, St.Vincent's College, Potts Point and Research Associate, the University of Sydney.

Technology and research in our schools

 Adam Carron


We can all agree that technology strongly shapes how we conduct research. The very idea of “research” has monumentally changed in this digital world. The approach in which this is carried out effectively still needs to be addressed in our schools. Our students have the use of multiple devices at their disposal. It is now about how we harness this power to help our young people obtain relevant, trustworthy and rich information that will drive their learning.

 

How can schools address this ‘skills’ gap?

Educators are now faced with the task of teaching and embedding research skills or competencies by utilising technology in new and innovative ways. Teaching research skills in isolation is not an effective way to help our students. Students must be armed with a project to manage that requires well-intentioned research. Our young people need to recognise that there is a need to judge the quality and merit of information. This is clearly a skill which an immense number of educators consider to be central to effective research.

According to a recent study carried out by the Pew Research Centre, 2012, many teachers openly acknowledged that they do not feel suitably qualified to teach genuine research with their classes. The study identifies that a ‘good use’ of technology can give our young people the tools to research more fruitfully. The study identifies that it is not a good idea to give students an ‘isolated weighty’ research project. It is important to provide smaller, ongoing manageable projects in which educators can provide ongoing feedback and support.

Technology is providing our students with quick and easy ways of carrying out research. Web based tools such as Instagrok are designed to help our students to develop the ability to research, curate and synthesis information. EasyBib now enables our students to build their own bibliographies with ease and precision. EasyBib’s beta research area now provides students with the ability to share citations with others.

It is both the role of the teacher and library staff to communicate with our young people the difference between a project that is plagiarised and a project that is not. It is vital that educators utilise and share the wealth of knowledge and expertise of their colleagues to provide the most creditable learning experiences for our students.
   
The library staff play a significant role in embedding effective research skills to both our students and to our teachers. As identified above by the Pew Research, 2012, we need to also provide professional learning experiences to our teachers to equip them with ability to transfer effective research competencies in the digital age. We are in exciting times!

http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Teens-and-Privacy.aspx
http://www.instagrok.com
www.easybib.com
Image is taken from Corbis Royalty free images:
http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/42-35405679/electrodes-attached-to-monitor?popup=1 

Adam is a research, library and computing teacher at Newington College, Sydney. Working as part of the library team, he is heavily involved driving information literacy across the school. He has a keen interest in research education and technology.

Open Access: Researchers, Librarians, and Library Research

Amy Croft

Image from the iCommons website: http://icommons.org/post-archive/1755

This week is the 6th international Open Access Week, an annual event to promote the benefits of open access to the academic and research community. So what better time to discuss its impact on researchers and librarians?

What exactly is Open Access?

Open Access (OA) was defined in the Budapest Open Access Initiative Declaration of 2002 as “free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.”

A fantastic starting point for those new to OA is Peter Suber's overview. The two main options are known as gold OA (publishing in OA journals, sometimes for a fee, which provide free access to the article) and green OA (providing a version of the article to be stored and made available in an OA repository).

 

Impact on researchers

Having publications freely available online rather than behind a paywall increases the potential for discovery, and thus citations and impact for researchers. Open access allows authors to promote, and directly link to, their research on social media platforms. Sten Christensen of the University of Sydney Library’s Sydney eScholarship Repository has blogged that the most viewed items in the repository were those that the authors promoted using social media such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Brian Kelly has observed the same results with his own publications, and recently shared his Top 12 Tips for researchers to maximise the visibility of their work.

 

Impact on librarians and libraries

Harvard University Library famously advised all faculty members in a memo this year that the increasing costs of subscribing to major periodicals cannot be sustained, and urged them to consider open access options. In an article in the Guardian, Robert Darnton (Director of Harvard Library) said he hoped other universities would follow suit, saying “We all face the same paradox. We faculty do the research, write the papers, referee papers by other researchers, serve on editorial boards, all of it for free … and then we buy back the results of our labour at outrageous prices.”

OA provides a chance to solve the ‘serials crisis’ and make scholarly information available in a more cost-effective way.

 

Demonstrating our value

Ask me about Open Access: photo by mollyali http://www.flickr.com/photos/mollyali/2924209043/in/pool-38416968@N00/

A survey conducted by InTech showed that librarians believe that OA is changing the role of the librarian in the following ways:
o Librarians need to be better integrated with their research
community as a research partner and innovator (96% agree)
o Librarians need to be developing value‐added discovery and
delivery tools (92% agree)
o Librarians should focus on workflow within their institution to
improve efficiencies and enhance collaboration (87% agree)
o Librarians need to find ways to create trusted information
environments (86% agree)
o Librarians need to develop enhanced search and discovery skills
(83% agree)
o Librarians should support authors in relation to rights with
advice on publishing options and agreements (83% agree)
o Librarians should focus on metadata creation and management
(83% agree)
o Librarians need to focus less on being gatekeepers and have
more active involvement in the creation and dissemination of
content (80% agree)
o The role of the librarian should now be focused outward,
promoting the output of their institution worldwide (77% agree)

In other words, this is a wonderful opportunity for libraries to stop being mere warehouses of information, and for librarians to step up and take an active role in the creation, discovery, and use of scholarly information.

 

Impact on library research

There are still many questions about the costs and benefits of OA, and how it will develop in the future. This provides opportunities for library researchers to play their part in finding some answers.
Check out the research in progress and especially some “research questions in need of researchers” on the Open Access Directory wiki.

Which direction is your institution taking with OA? How do you see it affecting you as a librarian and/or researcher?

Amy is the Library Manager at CQUniversity Sydney, where she is also involved in the International Education Research Centre. She is interested in the use of technology to improve library services.