Information Nation: Education and Careers in the Emerging Information Professions by Jeffrey M. Stanton,Indira R. Guzman,and Kathryn R. Stam

The Future Voices in Public Services column is a forum for students in graduate library and information science programs to discuss key issues they see in academic library public services, to envision what they feel librarians in public service have to offer to academia, to tell us of their visions for the profession, or to tell us of research that is going on in library schools. We hope to provide fresh perspectives from those entering our field, in both the United States and other countries. Interested faculty of graduate library and information science programs, who would like their students' ideas represented in these pages, are invited to contact Nancy H. Dewald at nxd7@psu.edu.

Marissa K. Mason is an MSIS student specializing in archives and records management at the University at Albany's Department of Information Studies. In this essay, she discusses the opportunities and challenges of using various social media for promotional outreach of archives and special collections.

The University at Albany's Department of Information Studies, part of the College of Computing and Information, offers a broad-based Master of Science in Information Science degree accredited by the American Library Association. The program has concentrations in library and information services, archives and records administration, school library media, information management and policy, and information systems and technology. Students learn how information is created, organized, represented, stored, accessed, retrieved, managed and used. In addition, they investigate the uses and impacts of information and technology on individuals, organizations and society, including formal and informal communities, libraries, government, and business. A required internship course helps ensure that the program's graduates are ready to enter the world of information professionals. For more information, see http://www.albany.edu/informationstudies/index.php

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The Information Specialist Customer Partnership

Abstract

“To make significant contributions at appropriate points in the research process, information specialists must be positioned for proactive service to their users” (Von Seggem p. 101). At the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences Manufacturing Information Resource Center, information specialists are part of their customer' s team and contribute valuable expertise, information, and skills. The synergy of this relationship will be illustrated by describing three projects where these knowledge workers collaborated with their customers. From this experience, these information professionals share recommendations for fostering the customer librarian partnership. In conclusion, the synergistic practices described are related to literature on the topic of librarian customer teamwork.     

The Future for Information Professionals: Back to the Future

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the changing role of the information professional in a dynamic environment in which technology, resources, information needs, and user expectations change very rapidly. The author's conclusion is that while some of the roles of traditional librarians may be disappearing, there are plenty of opportunities for proactive information professionals in the new information environment. There are new services, new expertise, and new job titles. Businesspeople recognize that technology is not everything; the human factor, a person to select, filter, and analyze information, is critical. Information brokers and library fee-based service staff stand at the forefront of this new environment, because they are already used to employing and continually improving these vital skills.     

Information on Wheels-

Information on Wheels is an outreach service of the Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries. A mobile cart loaded with professional books and journals is taken weekly to the hospital unit and outpatient clinic of the Milwaukee County Hospital and Froedtert Hospital. The targeted audience is primarily nurses since (1) their job demands usually allow little time flexibility, and (2) they make up the largest percentage of hospital health care professionals. After one year of service, a survey was undertaken to determine the usefulness of the service. The results were very positive. One comment repeated was, "This is an excellent service because is provides easy access to pertinent information to people who are sometimes too busy or don't think to go to the library."     

Joy Is Bustin' Out All Over

When the American Library Association's Reference and Adult Services Division adopted "Information Services for Information Consumers: Guidelines for Providers" in June of 1990, it set the positive tone that reference work can and should have throughout the decade and beyond. Efforts by corporations to promote end-user online services, consumer-oriented CD-ROMs, and the like constitute an attempt to recreate the library. These attempts are, however, inherently flawed in that, unlike the library, they do not marshal the wide variety of information resources - print, online, CD-ROM, audio-visual, etc. - that libraries routinely make available. "Information Services or Information Consumers: Guidelines for Providers" challenges information providers (i.e., libraries and reference librarians) to take full advantage of new information and communications technology to make not only the services marketed to end users useful to library patrons, but to realize more fully the potential of the rich resources already concentrated in libraries. The guidelines offer reference librarians and library administrators and governing boards a vision of a comprehensive information service centered in and delivered by the library to the members of the community it is intended to serve. They also challenge reference librarians, library administrators, and governing boards to make that vision a reality. This will require creativity, entail some risks, and depend for its success upon the quality of the resources allocated to the task. The most important variable will be the quality of the front-line reference librarians and their commitment to that vision and the spirit of the guidelines.     

Meeting the Information Needs of Battered Women:

Wde assault is an important social problem that needs to be addressed by librarians and library and information science (LIS) re:;earchers concerned with the way in which battered women search for information. This paper reports on two studies in which the social1 service network is viewed as a type of information system and which question the effectiveness of community responses to the information needs of battered women. The results of these studies suggest several ways in which LIS professionals can better assist three client groups: individual battered women, social service providers, and public policy or decision makers.     

Strengthening the Foundation for Information Literacy in an Academic Library

The relationship between the library and the information literacy movement is acknowledged, and a further delineation of responsibility at the academic reference service level is examined. Reference librarians' perspective enables them to serve as "information advisors," fostering students' development of information storage and retrieval, this role becomes increasingly important. The need for students to emerge as independent learners is crucial at this stage in their lives. Information literacy abilities are discussed as a by-product of general reference functions. Reference librarians are urged to encourage the growth of these abilities by stimulating students' understanding of critical thinking.     

Escaping Lenin's library: Library and Information Science education in independent Ukraine

This article examines historical developments and current trends in Ukrainian library education. It gives a synthetic overview and comparison with US library education, based on a review of the Ukrainian literature, a survey of Library and Information Service (LIS) curricula and interviews with senior figures in Ukrainian LIS education. Ukraine became an independent state only in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Previous to independence, Ukraine's LIS education was integrated within the Soviet system. After independence the system evolved slowly, but with the recent Orange Revolution, reform efforts have increased pace. Ukrainian LIS education remains more vocational than in the US, with a two-year non-degree certificate as the most common training, and a four-year bachelor's degree offered by elite institutions. One emerging trend in LIS education stresses the new opportunities for librarians and information professionals opened by Internet technologies. Another is part of a more general shift, inspired by a new Ukrainian higher education law, stressing the country's independent culture and formalizing standards for different degrees. LIS education has now reached a turning point, as reformers grapple with the limited resources, power of inertia, and remnants of Soviet culture in their efforts to meet current challenges and prepare a new generation of information professionals.     

Shopping for Health Information

ABSTRACT

In this time of ongoing health care changes, consumers need to become better informed to actively participate in their health care decisions. As a result, hospital libraries are being challenged to address this need. Scottsdale Healthcare's Health Sciences Libraries have responded to this challenge by establishing a Health Information Center at the premiere shopping mall in the area. Implementing a Health Information Center at a mall is a unique way to bring medical information to the community. The purpose of this paper is to describe the planning process, the implementation, and the future vision of the Health Information Center at Scottsdale Fashion Square.     

It's All About Me: The User-Centered Approach as a Solution to the Challenges Posed by Information Literacy Instruction

The Future Voices in Public Services column is a forum for students in graduate library and information science programs to discuss key issues they see in academic library public services, to envision what they feel librarians in public service have to offer to academia, to tell us of their visions for the profession, or to tell us of research that is going on in library schools. We hope to provide fresh perspectives from those entering our field, in both the United States and other countries. Interested faculty of graduate library and information science programs, who would like their students’ ideas represented in these pages, are invited to contact Nancy H. Dewald at nxd7@psu.edu

Samantha Sinanan is an MLIS candidate in the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Here she proposes that librarians should seek to understand the Net Generation searcher's perspective in order to teach information literacy most effectively.

Accredited by the American Library Association with the Canadian Library Association, SLAIS is an internationally recognized graduate school at The University of British Columbia, in beautiful Vancouver. At SLAIS we are in the business of preparing professionals to exercise leadership in planning, implementing, and promoting the preservation, organization, and effective use of society's recorded information and ideas. We offer the master's degree in Library and Information Studies (MLIS) and the master's degree in Archival Studies (MAS). In addition, we sponsor a multidisciplinary Master of Arts in Children's Literature (MACL) with five other departments. Opportunities are also available for post-master's study, including a Ph.D. program in library, archival & information studies. For more information, visit www.slais.ubc.ca     

行动研究：图书情报工作研究的新范式

针对目前图书情报工作研究中理论与实践脱节、理论研究者与实际工作者相分离的状况,有必要引入行动研究这种新的研究方法。图书情报工作行动研究,可以激发图书情报从业人员的主体性与创新精神,促进理论研究与实际工作的结合,改进图书情报工作的实际效果,优化服务职能,是现代图书情报从业人员职业发展的重要方式。     

Faculty Perceptions of Digital Information Literacy (DIL) at an Indian University: An Exploratory Study

The purpose of this study is to explore and investigate the perception of faculty on Digital Information Literacy (DIL) and their skills and competencies in using digital information in an Indian University. In this study, special focus has been on Sambalpur University (SU) in the state of Odisha. Furthermore, this study has enlightened various types of DIL skills and competencies required for faculty members of Information Communication Technology, constraints affecting related skills, competencies, and suggested suitable measures to meet challenges in University libraries. The study has provided direction for information professionals to meet the challenges and demands of the information requirements of faculty members from the University by adopting innovative solutions through evidence-based practices.     

The Recent Fate of a National Alcohol Information System

A case is made for the desirability of a national alcohol information network. The information activities carried on by both the National Clearinghouse for Alcohol Information (NCALI) and the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies (RCAS) are described. The establishment of a cooperative information-sharing arrangement between these two centers, and its subsequent discontinuation due to federal budget cuts, is recounted. The current prospects for improved information services to alcohol professionals is reviewed.     

大数据语境下情报学的坚守与拓展

[目的/意义]研究情报学如何响应大数据语境提出的功能要求,在研究内容、方法及范式上做出相应的调整与聚焦.[方法/过程]应用历史分析方法,梳理总结情报学应对纸介质信息爆炸时在文献选择、内容揭示、服务提供及技术应用等方面积累的经验;应用规范化方法分析大数据时代对情报学在服务对象、信息获取、信息序化和决策支持上的挑战,基于情报学的三维范畴描述讨论情报学在信息发现、信息序化、信息服务、信息技术与信息政策法规等方面的新研究取向.[结果/结论]大数据时代,情报学既应坚守历史演化所积累的学科特色,也应积极响应时代挑战,拓展新的研究领域.     

信息共享空间与信息素养

信息素养是现代社会中必需的基本素养,也是现代人才必备的基本素质。高校图书馆是信息素养教育的主要承担者。而信息共享空间作为一种新兴的服务模式和服务平台,其资源体系以及相应的服务体系的建设为信息素养教育提供了新的方式和内容。文章首先分析了信息共享空间与信息素养的关系,然后探讨了在IC如何利用其资源和服务提升信息素养教育的质量,从而实现信息素养教育的目标。     

CLIC! The Community Library Information Center:

The late '60s saw public libraries moving toward the establishment of information an a referral service through the creation of neighborhood information centers. The Prince George's County Memorial Library System, in Maryland, was one of those systems, establishing CLIC, the Community Library Information Center, in 1971. CLIC was housed in a neighborhood branch library, located within the Model Cities Area. Funded by the federal Model Cities (MNA) program, the service was designed to serve residents and human service providers in the Model Cities Area. Whcn the CLIC proposal was initially conceived, certain basic questions were generated: 1. Can an Information, Referral and Follow-Up (I. R & F.) service be established in a neighborhood branch library, dealing with a limited(geographically) clientele and a limited range of agency services? 2. Can the techniques of an I.R. & F. begun in a decentralized way (i.e. in a neighborhood branch library) be made applicable to and/or serve as a base for a subsequent centralization and dissemination throughout a large county? This article traces the history and discusses the various functions performed by the CLIC! service over the past IS years in an effort to provide answers to those questions.     

Transitioning from Print to Electronic Information Delivery: An Update from the National Research Council Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information

Canada's national science library, the National Research Council Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, is in the process of transforming its traditional document delivery services to meet the emerging needs of users. As such, the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information has developed a suite of Web-based services, partnerships, and collaborations to better serve its users. These components have been brought together to create new service offerings such as Discover, and the National Research Council Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information Standards Store. Quicker, more flexible and convenient access to the world's scientific, technical, and medical information from the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information and from sites where users congregate across the Web is the goal of Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information's new breed of information delivery services.     

对省级政府网站个性化信息服务建设的调查研究

对2006年中国电子信息产业发展研究院与中国信息化绩效评估中心的绩效评估结果中省级政府网站绩效排名前10名网站进行调查,并研究分析省级政府网站绩效评估指标,发现我国省级政府网站个性化建设"在线办事"名不符实,公众参与内容的回复反馈实不理想,个性化设置和信息定置应用不普通。我国政府门户网站的个性化信息服务建设应采用如下策略:掌握用户不断变化的信息需求,丰富网上服务资源,加强网上办事能力;有效实现互动功能;利用计算机网络技术,实现个性化服务功能;做好面向用户的网站使用帮助信息。     

网格环境下图书馆信息服务探究

文章分析网格环境下用户信息需求的发展趋势以及这一环境下图书馆信息服务的定位与功能特征,指出网格环境下的图书馆信息服务将以支持用户创建基于网格技术的PDL为主、并辅以规则使用的用户指导。在此基础上,作者结合以网格技术为基础建立起来的PDL原型项目DILIGENT,剖析了DILIGENT的设计思路、体系结构、主要组件,最后指出网格环境下图书馆以PDL为支撑的信息服务所面临的挑战。     

Information on wheels--library outreach.

Information on Wheels is an outreach service of the Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries. A mobile cart loaded with professional books and journals is taken weekly to the hospital unit and outpatient clinic of the Milwaukee County Hospital and Froedtert Hospital. The targeted audience is primarily nurses since their job demands usually allow little time flexibility, and they make up the largest percentage of hospital health care professionals. After one year of service, a survey was undertaken to determine the usefulness of the service. The results were very positive. One comment repeated was, "This is an excellent service because it provides easy access to pertinent information to people who are sometimes too busy or don't think to go to the library."