Sunday, December 31, 2006

Myths and Librarianship

Here are a couple of myths about our profession taken from the University of Western Ontario's MLIS webpage.


Anybody Can Work as an Information Professional

"There is a lack of awareness that librarians are university-educated at the graduate level and that a degree in library and information science qualifies you for many different roles as an information professional. The skills and expertise learned in most North American library science programs are highly transferable, enabling you to work not only in more traditional libraries, but also in diverse areas such as web management, advancement research, information systems, knowledge management, health information, community information networks, information management, and archives/records management, to name a few."


Information Professionals Don’t Need to be Proactive

Librarians need "to develop philosophical frameworks and policies that adhere to ideals of what it means to provide accessible, equitable and ethical library service to a wide variety of library patrons. Librarians, therefore, need to develop a personal philosophy of service and to adhere to certain codes of responsibility put forward by various professional bodies..."