The Future of the Profession

December 8, 2016

A panel discussion on “The Future of the Profession” was held at the last CLA National Forum held in Ottawa on June 1-3, 2016. This panel discussion was described as an exploration of the work that librarians in a variety of institutions are undertaking “to grapple with defining the role and unique value that trained library professionals bring to the workforce” and to discuss the question of whether “a shared vision of librarianship [is] an impossible dream”.

The speakers at this session represented the various flavours of librarianship operating in today’s information ecosystem. They included:

• Vickery Bowles, City Librarian at Toronto Public Library representing public libraries;
• Vivian Lewis, University Librarian at McMaster University representing academic libraries;
• Wendy Duff, Interim Dean and Professor at the Faculty of Information representing LIS educators;
• and Della Paradis, Director of Development at the University of Alberta representing LIS graduates working in non-library roles.

Della’s inclusion in this panel was an important move on the conference organizers’ part as it recognizes the contributions and voices of LIS graduates applying their LIS skills and knowledge outside of library settings – a demographic who are not often incorporated into LIS conference programs.

Vickers Bowles’ presentation focused on the role of librarianship’s enduring core values as being the glue that joins the various visions and disciplines of librarianship. She points out that these values have been maintained throughout the various evolutions that have occurred in the history of librarianship.  In addition to these core values, she described a number of competencies that she sees as vital for librarians in the 21^st century and pointed to the work that Toronto Public Library has undertaken both independently and in partnership with the University of Toronto iSchool to articulate and develop these competencies in library staff. These competencies include leadership, flexibility, and the ability to undertake evidence-based decision making. Leadership should be exercised by librarians in all positions within the organizational hierarchy, not just senior managers and can be manifested through the search for new and innovative partnerships for the library. Flexibility is essential given the high level of ambiguity present in our environment. Librarians must always be ready for the next wave of technological disruption and be willing to use leadership skills to act as social innovators and change agents within their libraries and larger communities when these opportunities present themselves. Finally, evidence-based decision making can help librarians to develop a compelling value proposition and to communicate the important role of the public library to politicians, business leaders, and even potential recruits to our profession.

Vivian Lewis discussed whether a shared vision of librarianship is possible or necessary. She pointed to the cultural differences in approaches to librarianship that exist in different parts of the world as well as the differences in vision created by inter-generational perspectives. Although having a shared vision and shared language to describe librarianship could help library users to better understand our services, developing that vision would require tremendous work and good will. She proposes that any shared vision that is developed should focus on what different visions of librarianship have in common rather than on differences, but should be flexible enough to respect the skills that proponents of different visions bring to the table. She proposes that the discussion of librarianship should be framed on areas of expertise rather than on competencies and differentiated between skills, competencies, and mindsets.  She characterized skills as those techniques that could be taught in the classroom. Competencies were seen as being at a higher level than skills incorporating the practices and knowledges developed in the classroom with experience gained through practice. She characterized mindsets as attributes that “you come hard wired with” and the “approach that you take to like”. She described creativity as a mindset. She advocates incorporating mindsets that focus on creativity and innovation into our hiring processes. She described the value proposition for librarianship as a vocation dedicated to service and connecting people to information and lamented that we have not communicated this message very well to young people considering careers in librarianship. The audiences for this message should include library users, pages and student assistants, and different types of professionals who interact with us in library settings.

Wendy Duff argued that any vision for librarianship must lead with values and that the values of librarianship have not changed. She argued that both iSchools and L-Schools share a commitment to the traditional values of librarianship and that the core of librarianship is that librarians are information experts. She argued for the need to break down silos and becoming increasingly interdisciplinary in the university environment. She also argued that we need to revisit how we are recruiting students to our profession stating that librarianship as a field has made our work look easy, hiding a strong skills set. More importantly, she argued that young people want to change the world and are seeking a profession where people care. In order to attract these students to LIS programs we need to communicate that the work we do is incredibly complex and that the work is designed to try to make people’s lives better.

Della Paradis talked about the edges of librarianship and the parameters that have been set to define who is included in the profession. She argued that labels and categories are created to give an illusion of order and that the label of librarian is used to categorize people who work in libraries. Her example, however, shows that a broader vision of librarianship is possible provided that the library community is willing to accept non-library-based professionals “in the club”. The conversation about librarianship that is taking place today is still focused on librarians working in libraries and needs to bring in a little more diversity and breadth to include the perspectives of those working outside of library settings. The experiences of these professionals might help redefine what librarians can do and this may attract more people to the profession.

These four presenters hit on a number of key themes for the profession. The idea of competencies of current practitioners and prospective students was a key topic, as was the centrality of librarianship’s core values. Perhaps more interestingly for the future of the profession was the idea of incorporating different visions of librarianship into the professional debate. The idea that different visions of librarianship could emanate from not only library professionals from different cultures and generations but also from different work settings. The key question for us to consider is how open is librarianship as a profession to competing definitions of its boundaries and where will those redefinitions lead us as a professional community?

Melissa Fraser-Arnott is the Knowledge Management Librarian for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. She recently completed her doctorate through the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) – San Jose State University (SJSU) Gateway PhD program. Her research interests include competencies, professional identity, and non-traditional jobs and careers.