After giving an overview of her program of study, Hope spoke about how the program had prepared her for the work that she has done. She emphasized that even though her courses focused on theory that they gave her the knowledge and flexibility that she had needed in her career.
Sara also talked briefly about the ALA Accreditation process. Most professional library positions are filled by people with an ALA Accredited Library and Information Science degree. While this holds all of the programs to a set of standards, it does not mean that all of the programs are alike. The accreditation does help to ensure that students learn the theory behind the practice.
First...it is important to recognize that hiring managers assume that someone with a MLIS degree has learned the requisite library skills. What then differentiates job candidates are the other skills that managers want. Some of these are soft or business skills, while others are more focused or specialized library skills.
So here is the list that I presented of skills that hiring managers
want and LIS students need to learn in class OR through out-of-class
activities OR work experiences:
- Leadership
- Project management & project planning
- Technical (technology) skills [Every library is using technology, so understanding technology and being able to adopt to new technologies are essential.]
- Continuous learning
- Assessment and outcome-based evaluation
- Dealing with the community
- Teaching – one-on-one and group/class [Every librarian is a teaching librarian.]
- Finance…Budgeting, project costing, grant writing
- Flexibility
- Ability to see and understand the big picture
- Communication and presentation skills
- Marketing and advocacy
- Data collection and analysis
- Ability to be outward facing
- Understand how to transfer skills
- Understand organizational politics [This cannot be taught, so a person must learn it through his/her work environments.]
- See a problem and propose a solution
- Conversant with databases
- See concerns/problems from multiple points of view
- Ability to see how non-library competitors (e.g., Amazon) are solving library problems
- Metadata
- How to collaborate and create partnerships
- Time management
- Foreign language [Every LIS professional is serving a multicultural, multilingual community. Therefore, being conversant in a modern foreign language - or even American Sign Language - can be quite helpful. In addition, libraries are creating metadata for materials that are in a wide variety of languages, so being able to understand a foreign language can be quite helpful.]
One question was about how these skills are being taught in an LIS program. Honestly, everything that hiring managers want in a perfect MLIS graduate cannot be taught in a graduate program. There just isn't enough time. Yes, some of these can be taught as part of a class or a student may be given an opportunity to practice a skill as part of class. However, students need to be willing to learn some of these skills on their own outside of class, either through workshops, independent study, or other work/volunteer experience. Someone who has taken time to perfect skills outside of the classroom is also presenting him/herself as someone who understands the need to engage in continuous learning, which is desired by hiring managers.
If you attended this session or just find the topic of interest, I would be interested in your comments (especially if you disagree with something!). This is an important topic for those of us who are educators and for those who are in an LIS program.
