All Librarianship is Political: Educate Accordingly

After participating in a multi year project considering the future directions for library and information science (LIS) education, the authors of this paper realized an essential aspect of the nature of libraries and librarianship was continually overlooked or sidestepped in the events and discussions. That is, libraries as institutions and many of the actions of library professionals are inherently political, yet LIS education has not traditionally prepared students for them. Confronting this aspect of LIS education and the profession in general and creating curriculum that emphasizes the politics of librarianship will better prepare students to serve their patrons, their communities, and their institutions. Such an educational approach would emphasize preparing future library professionals in areas such as leadership, education, activism and advocacy, community service and engagement, policy and law, rights and justice, and marketing and evaluation, resulting in the politically savvy librarians ready to be activists for their institutions and communities. This paper explores the design of library education, criticism of library education, and the actual environment of contemporary librarians as the context for suggesting this significant change in the focus of library education. We live in a political world, and it's time we prepare our students for this world.  Education Matters to A Lot of People, Not Just Librarians The College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland has spent the past few years working on the Re Envisioning the MLS project. During 2014 2015 we brought together administrators, professionals, national leaders, scholars, and other stakeholders to help us identify priorities in LIS education. In identifying priorities we focused on real discussions and asked "tough" questions about the true nature of LIS and LIS education, even going so far as to ask "do we really need the MLS anymore?" While the events and publications helped us identify many new important educational goals and outcomes for library education to pursue (Bertot, Sarin, Percell, 2015; Bertot, J. C. Sarin, L. 2015; Bertot, J. C. Sarin, L. C. Jaeger, P. T. 2016) This effort also demonstrated to us the long standing issues that have been a challenge to library education since it was first formalized. Members of the field have a long history of self reflection and self doubt about the education programs that prepare them for the profession. Formalized education programs for librarianship date back 130 years in the United States. The standardized Master of Library Science (MLS) Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) (and other variations) degree is now over 50 years old and two year library degrees have been the norm for more than 30 years (Murray, 1978; Swigger, 2012) Yet, distress about library education has been a continuous concern throughout this time. In 1985, a library school professor created "An Anthology of Abuse" documenting the different criticisms of library education up to that point. These ranged from the perceived limitations of the faculty to the perceived limitations of the curriculum to the perceived limitations of the students themselves (Rothstein, 1985) This list was expanded by another author a few years later (Bohannan, 1991) In looking at the discourse, it is hard not to conclude that the library profession tends to see the new as a crisis rather than an opportunity. In 2005, Andrew Dillon and April Norris applied the term "crying wolf " to describe the seeming need for librarianship to continually question education in the field and suggested that the perception of crisis was a way for the profession to avoid substantively changing. This avoidance of evolution was cleverly labeled the "panda syndrome" in the 1990s, reflecting an animal that has notably failed to evolve to its own detriment (Sutton Van House, 1998; Van House Sutton, 1996) In short, instead of perceiving changes and challenges in society, changes in technology, and changes in the needs of the profession as opportunities to improve education and in turn the impacts made by programs graduates, many in the field react to each change or challenge as "an existential crisis that threatens the nature of the field" (Jaeger, 2010, p. 290) We have, for example, viewed newspapers, recorded music, and films at various points a threat to librarianship as a profession and libraries as an institution (McCrossen, 2006; Preer, 2006) The Political Librarian 18 For all of this ongoing concern, libraries have never been as widely or heavily used as they are now, nor have they provided as impressive an array of services and programs for their communities. From the library community's adoption of service roles for immigrants, to digital literacy and inclusion, government services, job training, and access to food, libraries have demonstrated their role as institutions of education, public discourse, and equality (McCook, 2002; Thompson, Jaeger, Taylor, Subramaniam, Bertot, 2014) In short, libraries inform, enable, equalize, and lead (Bertot, 2014) Such actions occur in many different contexts: education, inclusion, employment, social services, public spaces, digital literacy, and community development, as well as other community needs (Jaeger, Taylor, Gorham, Kettnich, Sarin, Peterson, 2014) Along with providing access to materials in various formats (as they have done since the mid 1800s) libraries now are a primary source by which communities gain access to computers, digital literacy, and digital inclusion; access to and help with a wide range of social and government services; help in responding to disasters; partnerships with other community institutions to create new and innovative services; and advocacy for human rights and the promotion of social justice in their communities (Gorham, Taylor, Jaeger, 2016; Jaeger, Gorham, Bertot, Sarin, 2014; Jaeger, Taylor, Gorham, 2015; Thompson et al, 2014) The performance of these roles is like so many things, heavily shaped by the political environment around libraries in general and the environments of the specific communities they serve. The ever evolving and expanding contributions of libraries represent an opportunity to re envision and recreate the MLS degree program to better prepare students for both the amazing roles that librarians now play and ready them to be innovators of new contributions to their communities. We must make sure future librarians are being prepared for the realities of the environments in which they are going to be working, to determine and evaluate the needs and expectations individuals and communities may have, AND to respond accordingly. The need for training future librarians for the true nature of the profession emerged rapidly and consistently throughout the Re Envisioning the MLS project1 During year one we hosted numerous speaking events and engagement sessions, conducted regional visits across the state of Maryland, spoke with a range of leaders in the information professions, in addition to continual research and analysis of relevant literature and trends. Some of the key findings identified were (see the final report for a complete list) The Shift in Focus to People and Communities. The shift de emphasizes collections to focus more on individuals and the communities they serve. In particular to how institutions can facilitate community and individual change and transformation through learning, making, content creation, and other forms of active and interactive engagement. Core Values Remain Essential. Participants articulated a core set of values that are fundamental to the MLS degree and information professionals that included ensuring access, equity, intellectual freedom, privacy, inclusion human rights, learning, social justice, preservation and heritage, open government, and civic engagement. Competencies for Future Information Professionals. Information professionals need to have a set of core competencies that include the ability to: lead and manage projects and people; facilitate learning and education either through direct or indirect instruction; to work with, and train others to use, a variety of technologies. As well as marketing and advocacy skills; strong public speaking and written communication skills; a strong desire to work with the public; problem solving and the ability to think and adapt instantaneously; knowledge of the principles and applications of fundraising, budgeting, and policymaking; and relationship building among staff, patrons, community partners, and funders. Knowing and Leveraging the Community. There is a need for information professionals who can fully identify the different populations and needs of the communities that they serve. By understanding their challenges and underlying opportunities, they can adapt and respond effectively to their individual needs. The common thread among these finds for the authors 1 Visit hackmls.umd.edu for full text of all documentation and to view the archive of recorded events. Vol 2 Issue 1 April 2016 White Paper The Political Librarian 19 is their political nature and the political savvy necessary to address them. In order for a librarian to fully respond to individual community needs, they must understand the types of users they are working for as well as those who aren't using their services. They must identify resources needed to serve these individuals or groups, create justifications for these resources using real data, and then make the case for why the resources are necessary to those in power, whether it be the provost in a university, a principal or superintendent in a school, or to the voters who must vote to approve a new tax or millage in order to pay for new services or facilities. To be effective in these librarians must understand this political process and tactics that can be used to get them to Vote Yes.