Libraries and library studies

We often hear it said that libraries (and librarians) select, organize, retrieve, and transmit information or knowledge. That is true. But those are the activities, not the mission, of the library. … the important question is: “To what purpose?” We do not do those things by and for themselves. We do them in order to address an important and continuing need of the society we seek to serve. In short, we do it to support learning. Robert S. Martin (2003). Reaching across Library Boundaries. In Emerging Visions for Access in the Twenty-first Century Library.

As Robert Bellah observed in The Good Society (Knopf, 1991), "Institutions are socially organized ways of paying attention." Hospitals pay attention to illness and health, police pay attention to crime prevention, and the courts pay attention to justice. Similarly, public libraries are society's way of paying attention to learning and equity. In the United States we hold both in high esteem, so we fund public libraries with tax revenues. Eleanor Jo Rodger (2002) Value and Vision.

[…] the similar shift within academic libraries from an existence based on an assumed and stable value that libraries contribute to the institutional mission to a negotiated comprehension of services and resources where social and intellectual capital provide apt and useful frameworks for conceiving of the exchanges that occur between libraries, librarians, users, communities, institutions and other stakeholders. Tim Schlak in Schlak, T., Corrall, S., & Bracke, P. (2023). The social future of academic libraries: new perspectives on communities, networks, and engagement.

Introduction

The iSchools have the collective resource to situate the library of today in current technology, policy and organizational questions. And potentially to connect to research and education agendas across disciplines.

The report makes clear an immediate challenge - to emphasise and elevate the library research and education agenda within the university. Addressing this seems like a priority. This involves playing (in Bourdieu’s terms) the research university ‘game’, especially looking at what is valued in an R1 institution.[1] At the same time, today’s libraries will benefit from better frameworks, evidence and arguments to guide them. There is a need for stronger connection to workplace issues and skills, and potentially greater focus on credentialing for ongoing development. Is there a tension between these two goals? Is there a way of aligning academic and practice incentives?

However, from an educational perspective it is important to see them in their full breadth as institutionalized community and cultural actors. From a research perspective, libraries are sites of major social, organizational and cultural questions.

There are many scholars in iSchools who are making interesting connections with the library as organization, social actor and institution. Within a more technical iSchool context, there may be sometimes a tendency to see libraries as a collection of information management practices.  However, from an educational perspective it is important to see them in their full breadth as institutionalized community and cultural actors. From a research perspective, libraries are sites of major social, organizational and cultural questions.

Libraries

Here are some of the ways in which libraries intersect with broader agendas.  

• They are social, learning and research infrastructure connected in multiple ways to the communities they serve. They prompt questions about support and investment in social infrastructure, equity, the status of public goods, health and wellness, the construction and maintenance of research and learning infrastructure.
• They are social creations where one can explore long standing manifestations of the public sphere, of social capital, of network theory, of memory and forgetting.
• They support learning in both directed and emergent ways – early reading, social skills, study spaces, instruction, life-wide learning. This interacts with community agendas around reading, childhood development, equity, pedagogy, student retention, and wellness.
• They have curated the scholarly and cultural record, and so offer the opportunity to explore cultural patterns, including legacies of oppression or oversight.
• They are embedded in evolving scholarly ecosystems and help influence their direction. They are centrally involved in service and policy questions around open access, scholarly communication, and research infrastructure.
• They have created innovative organizational responses to the network dynamics of recent decades, developing network platforms and logistics systems before they were common more broadly. They have built multi-faceted consortia to help distribute collections, infrastructure and expertise. They were early movers to the cloud. They are deeply embedded in collaborative, vendor and other networks, raising strategic, investment and organizational development questions about platforms, network organization, and related topics. This poses interesting organizational development, management, negotiation and partnering strategies and skills.
• They are exploring what organizational, skills development, and staffing patterns will support their future as they continue to provide access to the means of creative production. They need a broad array of skills and attributes, some of which will be drawn from outside the MLIS pool.
• Libraries deploy and advise about technologies in a variety of settings – enterprise systems, discovery, content delivery, research workflow, and so on. They are great environments in which to explore the sociotechnical evolution of technologies in practice.

Here are some broad ways in which the library may be reconfiguring services, expertise, and positioning.

1. Scope. Libraries are co-creating their futures with deeply engaged communities. There is a transition from a library which was transactional and collections-based to one which is relational and community-based. Public libraries have a social role and align services with education and social services, with a range of non-profits and charities. They serve the community’s needs for equity, for educational attainment, for food security, for immigrant services. Academic libraries more deeply engage with campus partners across the research and learning spectrum. They are important partners in research effectiveness, scholarly communication, student retention, and life-wide learning. These trends all create the need for a variety of teachable skills.
2. Institution. The library is an institution, embedded in particular social relations, values and investments. As such, it has a history and evolving social and cultural meanings. Rodgers argues that public libraries are society’s way of paying attention to equity and learning. What happens when elements of a society do not value learning and equity? Or where this is not understood by the voter? We see this now in the challenges to the public library. What is the equivalent of ‘learning and equity’ for academic or other libraries? It is important for all libraries to explain their value and story in ways that the host understands, and libraries have been very focused on value, values and vision. For much of its existence these have been stable and accepted. However, the abundance of information resources on the web and the rise of economic liberalism has meant that this can no longer be taken for granted.
3. Story. The library story is being retold to be relational, community-focused and generative, but this story is not widely socialized or always understood by those that support or fund libraries. The value of the library cannot be taken as ‘assumed or stable.’  As Bob Martin suggests, an information-based story is not strong, especially as information activities and investigation are diffused through multiple services on the web, personal activities, and disciplinary homes. The library story is being renegotiated.
4. Empathy and equity. Recent experiences have underlined the need for the library to purposefully recognize the importance of equity and empathy. Libraries have recognized a need to move past mere statements of diversity and inclusion, to recognize harm or omission and to begin to repair damaging and exclusive practices. The pandemic has also underlined economic inequities, the digital divide, the importance of available social infrastructure, especially for those that critically rely on library spaces and extended services. We know that libraries support mental wellness, social cohesion, digital equity, and personal and community development. Libraries have been asked to step up to additional social roles and to reshape services. This in turn has highlighted staff stress and unpreparedness, and the need for self-care and boundaries.

This makes it an extraordinarily interesting time to prepare people to work in libraries or to investigate them. The library position and role are being re-negotiated and co-created within diverse user communities. This generates educational needs and a wide variety of research questions which would benefit from a multi-disciplinary approach.

At the same time, today’s libraries will benefit from better frameworks, evidence and arguments to guide them.

Libarianship and the iSchool

With new challenges comes a demand for education and for training new skills. This necessity is the topic of this article. We seek the answer to the question of how research librarians can educate themselves to meet the challenges of the unknown ‘new research library’? […] No uniform standardized educational program can take into consideration all the possible paths that the modern research library may choose and therefore all the skills needed by a modern research librarian – and information specialist. Wien, C. N., & Dorch, B. F. (2018). Applying Bourdieu’s field theory to analyze the changing status of the research librarian.

It’s very important for people who want to work in a library to learn communication skills, advocacy skills, because people with an MLIS are going to rise to leadership roles. It’s not going to necessarily be the entry point anymore for working in a library—there are other entry points. When you’re seeking that MLIS, it should be a management degree. It should be helping people to prepare for leading in some way. Sari Feldman (2019) Sari Feldman Gets Ready to Transform (Again).

Of those 11 skills ranked as core, only four could be considered specific to the field of LIS: knowledge of professional ethics, evaluating and selecting information sources, search skills, and the reference interview. The remaining seven are not only more generic but could also be categorized as “soft skills” or personal attributes: interpersonal communication, writing, teamwork, customer service skills, cultural competence, interacting with diverse communities, and reflective practice grounded in diversity and inclusion. Laura Saunders (2018). Core and more: examining foundational and specialized content in library and information science.

Learning and teaching

It was always a challenge encompassing the range of desired skills in the MLIS, given the variety of practice-oriented roles a librarian performs throughout their careers and the variety of working environments (youth services, special, academic, public, etc.). The knowledge and skills needed to run libraries effectively continue to evolve, to the extent that it is now common to recruit for other expertise (languages, social work, instructional design, disciplinary knowledge, marketing and communications, research expertise). The library of today requires the skills needed to manage complex changing organizations, engage and nurture diverse communities, negotiate and advocate.

The library of today requires the skills needed to manage complex changing organizations, engage and nurture diverse communities, negotiate and advocate.

In this context, Sari Feldman’s perspective that the MLS should be a management degree is interesting when placed alongside the demand for increasingly diverse technical skills (data science, data curation, application development, content licensing, collection development, instructional design, and so on) and a broad range of other vocational and general skills (communications, project management, and so on).

The skills and competencies required by the library (and related organizations) have been the subject of ongoing research (e.g. Saunders). And different career stages may prompt very different responses, depending on role, administrative responsibilities, and so on.

Of course, programs may offer different pathways, there may be specialisms (legal, health, …), and there is a variety of joint options possible in some settings (with an MBA for example, or history, or some other discipline).

Is the library education market large enough for eMBA or eMPA style MLSs for those in library management career paths? What about additional certificate-style credentials? These may be in technical areas (data science or AI, for example), in public administration or public policy, in intellectual freedom, in negotiation, in social work, in industrial relations, in copyright, and so on.  

The University of Southern Denmark took an interesting approach. In the article above the authors argue that the prestige of the research librarian[2] has declined and that it is not actually clear what skills they will need to do their jobs given the evolving nature of the research library. They introduced a masters program which allowed students to combine some LIS courses with courses from elsewhere in the University and beyond which they feel prepares them best.[3]

Has Library Studies kept up with the changing library landscape? Is it well-positioned to educate the library workforce or to guide its development? In its current iteration the report does not look at career preparation needs or the research and policy interests of the library community they serve. Anecdotally, one is aware of concerns that there is a gap here. Closing this gap is clearly a priority, although one has to understand it first. This is naturally a focus of individual schools and their positioning and emphases.

More collectively, it would be useful to do some research about career preparation needs and research and policy interests in the context of an exploration of Key Areas for education and research. A part of the ambition I spoke about in the introduction should surely involve some recalibration of the library education and research agenda, to ground and connect.

That said, again, the ability to refocus within the existing model in R1 institutions is limited in various important ways.

The Report does not discuss curriculum, and the candidate range could be broad given the discussion above. Here are some high-level library emphases, which do not necessarily map onto potential courses, but which suggest some directions. It is of course just indicative and incomplete.  

Nurturing and engaging community

As the library engages with a variety of community partners, a set of collaboration, communication and other skills is required. This might include supporting student success and retention and research workflows in academic settings. In a public library setting, the library is welcoming the community to its space with a growing variety of creative activities and events. It is partnering with social and educational services, with local charities or cultural institutions, with schools and colleges. It is reaching previously overlooked or marginalized populations, it is developing special programs for particular language groups, it is providing services for immigrants. Skills around, for example, community engagement, instruction, event management, public health, and exhibitions are more important.

Values

The Report emphasizes LIS values. The importance of equity and empathy has been underlined in recent years. Both within the structures of the library itself, and in relation to the role of the library within its community. Libraries are refocusing organizational cultures and values, the importance of reparative action in relation to collections, practices and attitudes, and are more actively working to understand and practice inclusion, plurality and diversity. They are working to embrace more justly the experiences, memories and knowledges of all the communities they serve. 

Social and so-called soft skills

So-called soft skills, and the contributions of the (often female) library workers who demonstrate them, have often been undervalued or gone unobserved. However, the value and visibility of this work is increasingly recognized as critical (see for example Decker, Dempsey). This is especially so as the library is more relational and collaborative. These are learnable skills which include advocacy, negotiation or conflict resolution, for example, or empathy, communications and teamwork.  So-called soft skills are actually very hard, especially in the stressful contexts that have become common in some public library settings.

So-called soft skills, and the contributions of the (often female) library workers who demonstrate them, have often been undervalued or gone unobserved.

Administrative and organizational

The skills required to manage complex connected organizations are various. It is common now to have a Management of People and Organizations course (or some such) which may end up being overloaded.

• Management of complex organizations, relationships and tasks.
• Greater project-based work.
• Negotiation – for content, services and collaborative work.
• Strategic planning and budgeting.
• People recruitment, retention and development.
• Creating diverse and inclusive environments for users and for staff.
• Working in consortial and collaborative environments.
• Organizational development.
• Industrial relations.
• Fund raising.
• Grant work.

Positioning, communication and advocacy

Traditionally, libraries may have distrusted ‘marketing’, however developing the library story has become more important given changing roles and current pressures around value and values.

• Communications and marketing – ensuring that the library story and position is well understood within its community, and elsewhere.
• Advocacy – representation of library interest to voters, host institutions, funders, user groups, and others.

Information policy and intellectual freedom

Balancing the rights of creators and consumers, pricing of licensed materials, open access discussions, information ethics, digital equity, attitudes to harvesting for AI or search – there is heightened attention to a range of information policy issues where libraries have to make decisions, advocate, and implement. Librarians also need to understand the legal framework of intellectual freedom, to be equipped with strategies and arguments in a contested political environment, and to have access to updated information.

Specialist skills

A growing number of staff will be drawn from outside the MLIS ranks. We already see this in roles like communication and marketing, technology, development, social work, subject specialties. Certificates or other approaches offered in partnership with others on campus may become more useful. Public Administration or instructional design come to mind, for example.

Information management

Of course, this is a historic core. The iSchool location is valuable in terms of the expanding information management skills of interest. Career preparation certainly benefits from options in data science, programming, research data management, instructional technology, metadata management, and so on.

LIS Forward

As noted throughout, the position of Library Studies within the university, its relationship to other informational disciplines, and its practice orientation have been much discussed. LIS Forward places this discussion in the current iSchool dynamic, a multidisciplinary school in an R1 institution.

As noted, it is in some ways a story of progressive subsumption. Schools of Library Studies diversified into LIS to reflect the changing technology environment, and the variety of informational careers students were following. LIS was subsumed into broader schools of information, as information processing and management became more common. The possible range is very wide, from quite vocationally oriented information systems, to social and philosophical aspects of an informational society, to values-driven social justice and equity emphases. In some cases, informatics or related undergraduate degrees were added. The Report makes clear that Library Studies feels squeezed or undervalued, despite reporting continued demand for the MLS. There are also questions about balance between teaching-oriented faculty and research faculty, as this educational demand continues, as well as increased use of guest faculty.

Given that this is a recurrent discussion, given the gap to practice, given the putative advantages of the multidisciplinary environment, and given the ‘urgency’ expressed in the report, one might expect that a strong response is required. To move the needle, after all, the needle must be moved.

I suggest some candidate areas for attention in the recommendations below. As noted in the introduction, I emphasize these four factors in relation to education and research for libraries throughout:

1. the benefits of increasing the awareness, scale and impact of research and policy work through a more concertedly collaborative approach,
2. the benefits of reconnecting more strongly with libraries and related organizations, and the organizations that channel their interests, which includes discussion of more flexible and tailored learning and certification reflecting evolving skills and workplace demands,
3. the possible benefits of refocusing this particular discussion of Library Studies around the institutional and service dynamics of LAM and connecting that with a variety of disciplinary hinterlands (public administration, social studies, and so on) and moving away from the familiar and maybe superseded discussions about IS, LIS and so on,
4. the benefits of developing an agenda of Key Areas which connect with current library needs, and which can provide some rationale or motivation for recruitment, research activity, granters, collaborative activity and so on. If iSchool education and research respond more actively to evolving library issues, the people with appropriate skills and interests need to be in place.

References

Buckland, M. (2012). What kind of science can information science be? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21656

Cronin, B. (1995). Shibboleth and Substance in North American Library and Information Science Education. Libri, 45(1), 45–63. https://doi.org/10.1515/libr.1995.45.1.45

Decker, E. N. (2020). The X-factor in academic libraries: the demand for soft skills in library employees. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 27(1), 17–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/10691316.2020.1781725

Dempsey, L. (2024, March 7). So-called soft skills are hard. Lorcan Dempsey Dot Net. https://www.lorcandempsey.net/soft-skills-are-hard/

Feldman, S. (2019, May 15). Sari Feldman Gets Ready to Transform (Again) [Interview]. https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/sari-feldman-gets-ready-to-transform-again

Martin, R. S. (2003). Reaching across Library Boundaries. In Emerging Visions for Access in the Twenty-first Century Library. CLIR. https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub119/martin/

Rodger, E. J. (2002). Value and Vision. American Libraries, 33(10). https://www.webjunction.org/documents/webjunction/Value_and_Vision.html

Saunders, L. (2019). Core and More: Examining Foundational and Specialized Content in Library and Information Science. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 60(1), 3–34. https://doi.org/10.3138/jelis.60.1.2018-0034

Schlak, T., Corrall, S., & Bracke, P. (2023). The social future of academic libraries : new perspectives on communities, networks, and engagement. Facet Publishing.

Wien, C. N., & Dorch, B. F. (2018). Applying Bourdieu’s field theory to analyze the changing status of the research librarian |. LIBER Quarterly: The Journal of the Association of European Research Libraries, 28(1). https://liberquarterly.eu/article/view/10719/11586

[1] Blaise Cronin (1995) is caustic about librarianship’s inability to play the university game (he does not express the thought in these words), tying this directly to closure of library schools. He argues for the ‘decoupling’ of the L and the IS in LIS, and, in his discussion of a candidate future, foreshadows something of the multi-disciplinary way in which the iSchool actually developed.

[2] The authors use ‘research librarian’ in a specialist sense which seems somewhat similar to library faculty in the US.

[3] This particular program is no longer offered but in a personal communication one of the authors informs me that it is possible to assemble a similar program at a more general level within the university.