Librarian Philosopher

Organize – Access – Evaluate – Use/Create – Continue the Conversation

Starting my 30^th year in the Library Science world does not necessarily mean much. Except that I have been fortunate to have had an excellent university preparation from the University of Texas and had the opportunity to work with many wonderful thoughtful Librarians mostly through participating in my professional organization the Texas Library Association (TLA). What I add to my perspective is hopefully useful observations over the years and the waning ability to remember some of them.

In the 1970’s Library Science was about organizing information not so it could be found by the user but so that it could be found by the trained Librarian. We thought we were organizing information and creating card catalogs so that users could find information but that was so only after we spent much energy teaching the nuances of the Card Catalog. Also, in the 70’s School Librarians dabbled with the creating of information. We learned and then taught how to create the infamous synchronized slide / tape presentation. I even figured out how to record two sound tracks with one a half second off the other to give a great science fiction effect.

In 1988 the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) came out with what I thought then was a revolutionary set of standards or guideline called Information Power (couldn’t find the 1988 version but the 1998 version is here from Amazon). Among other things its premise was that School Librarians were to teach Access, Evaluation, and Use of information. Access meant finding that information we worked so hard organizing. Evaluation at that point meant to determine which information was the best to use: a magazine, a book, a reference book, or a slide/tape presentation. Later, of course with the Internet, evaluation took on the meaning of determining if the information was accurate or any good at all. Use first meant mostly use in a research paper. Now, use means to create new information based from the previous information gathered and synthesized.

So, the progression has gone from organizing information to accessing or finding information, to evaluating or screening information to using or creating information to now as others have so much better described as continuing the conversation with and about information. This is the social networking contribution.

As an underlying theme of this progression that has bubbled up at times, School Librarians have begun to concentrate also on the students or users and try to listen to their needs and meet their needs in a way they understand and appreciate as (opposed to making them learn our information manipulation ways).

All these progressive emphases are cumulative. The fact that we are continuing the conversation now does not negate the need to organize. In fact we may have come full circle (or spiral) since the creators of the information now needs to think about the organization of their creations while they converse about them.

Other than the differences in jargon (You say find and I say access) what other progressions have occurred in Library Science and either paralleled these or intersected these?