Information Communication Technology Infusion in 21st Century Librarianship: A Proposal for a Blended Core Course

It is imperative that library and information science (LIS) professionals fully understand educational and independent life-long learning processes and shifts in technology-based learning and teaching strategies. Librarians across library types must also understand how their services and products combine with and impact collaborative educational efforts. This research reveals LIS core curriculum gaps in pre-professional training and evaluates pedagogical concepts drawn from the academic discipline of educational technology which may address those gaps. A template is proposed for a new blended LIS core course stressing information, communication and technology infusion delineating cross-disciplinary concepts that every LIS graduate should be required to study as part of the core LIS curriculum. These improvements to the LIS core curriculum should help all newly trained LIS professionals gain a better understanding of the current state-of-the-art in librarianship and, in a broad sense, of librarianship's advancing role in learning processes. Introduction Librarianship holds indispensable roles, today as always, in life-long learning activities and education trends. These areas are tremendously affected by on-going technology evolution and consequently, the very forces that are changing the processes of learning and education are also changing librarianship. They are drawing it closer to and literally entwining it with those processes. The profession is no longer a distinct and separate supportive "service" for education and the evolution of information, communication, and technology (ICT) advance learning and teaching toward a new state-of-art. New library professionals must now completely understand the variety and breadth of the resources used in the learning process. Librarians must also understand and utilize those "state-of-art" technological vehicles that define the context of learning and education. These include, among others; the classroom, the teaching environment and teaching strategies. Librarians must be able to understand and help to augment the dynamic educational products that today's learners and teachers are expected to produce. And it is also important for librarians to know that the activities involved with the development and delivery of services and products of librarianship have all evolved to more closely resemble and even combine with those activities in learning and teaching environments. Can our new graduates meet the demands of this new era of information access and learning? Findings here indicate that our current core pre-professional training does not fully meet the challenge of preparing new librarians for new learning and education. Because of this, we must seek improvements in the core curriculum. Literature Review LIS Educators, the Market and Curricula Review American Library Association (ALA) past President, Michael Gorman used his monthly column in American Libraries to highlight concern for a profession that needs to refocus pre-professional training and standards for that training. In step with a movement to realign accreditation standards for pre-professional training, Gorman often discusses librarianship's core competencies in his public communications. He has suggested a need to change the accreditation process in order to make it more relevant. ' He also stated that "Libraries have become much more complex, streamlined and technically advanced in the past decade or so. Most libraries have fewer librarians than in the past. The only good result is that we have had to reconsider the role of librarians . . . "2 Concurrently, the ALA Committee on Education has developed a draft statement of professional core competencies which would under-gird LIS programs' goals and core requirements. The areas of the proposed core competencies include; professional ethics, resource building, knowledge organization, technological knowledge, knowledge dissemination-service, knowledge dissemination-education and life-long learning, knowledge inquiry-research, and institution management. …