LISNews: Librarian News

In the Netherlands, an innovative LibrarySchool welcomes its first students into a university program designed to educate a new wave of public librarians. It’s both an academic program and an incubator of ideas.

Read the full story here: Designing a New Kind of Library Education

The LibrarySchool emerged from a decade of experiments on the future of libraries that explored how we can shape our future, what role libraries play in society, and how collaboration can help keep libraries vital.

Read the full story here: Prototyping Tomorrow's Libraries

Putting the UX in Education
Just as UX can be further integrated into the library world by being incorporated into LIS curriculum, libraries creating UX librarian positions must work closely with LIS programs to ensure that coursework is well aligned with expectations. Only by breaking down the barriers between LIS curricula and the library world will we create the user-focused library.

ALA Learning Round Table and OCLC’s WebJunction collaborate to offer free online conference
Trends in Library Training and Learning: Developing Staff Skills for the 21st Century program is set for August 10–11

WebJunction, OCLC’s online learning community for library staff, and the ALA Learning Round Table, which promotes quality continuing education for all library personnel, will team up to offer a free, online learning and training conference August 10–11, 2011.

The conference, to include eight one-hour sessions over two days, will be hosted using the WebEx web conferencing tool, which will provide attendees with easy online access to all live sessions and the ability to interact with other attendees and presenters using text-based chat. Registration will open by June 1 when full conference details are available on WebJunction.org.

“Libraries are changing quickly and staff need more training than ever to navigate nimbly through change,” said Sharon Morris, ALA Learning Round Table President 2010–11. “This conference will help library trainers, managers and staff to find new ways to train, learn and keep up. The Learning Round Table members are excited to be working with WebJunction on this cutting-edge online conference.” -- Read More

and libraries are unemployment offices."

Or so this article seems to say when it reported that the University of Illinois is attempting to merge the Graduate School of Library and Information Science with the College of Media, the School of Labor and Employment Relations, and the School of Social Work.

But librarians have been saying the same for years, that we've become babysitters, video stores and time-wasting centers for the unemployed and the unemployable.

So why shouldn't college reflect the true nature of the work?

The most important factor I can see in favor of the merger is that a report concluded that combining the schools would create "intellectual synergies."

Oh. My. God. Haven't we all been saying this? That we need greater opportunities for intellectual synergy? I have it tattooed right here on my left butt cheek. Oh, crap, the tattoo guy spelled synergy wrong. It looks like it says, Syndy. That's what you get when you go to a guy who tattoos strippers all day.

What amazes me most about this story is that the Illinois law school has 735 students and the library school has 713 students enrolled in the current class. It just surprises me that the classes are about the same size. But of course, the law students are willing to pay out about 3 times more money for their education, so the university prizes them more. -- Read More