Fundamental issues have become evident as we have considered the opinions of our participants who displayed no discernible differences based on their discipline or experience. The views of our participants have aided our understanding of the perception of librarians and our role. These will influence the recommendations we make for the realisation of our vision which is for graduates to be fully
information literate and, to achieve that, librarians need to be empowered to contribute. These key issues are listed below and then reflected on:
Academics acknowledged that the professional role of librarians has
changed. However they have a limited view of this role which suggests that librarians need to proactively contribute to changing these perceptions.
Some participants believe that they already have good information skills and do not need the help of a librarian. Yet they also referred to the poor “academic skills” of their colleagues and their students.
None of our academic participants actually used the term information literacy. There was, however, reference to “academic literacy” and “researchship”.
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Who is responsible for the teaching of literacies within the curriculum and how?
The primacy of research leading to perceptions of research snobbery.
The need for a virtual or physical social research space.
Should librarians become academics?
The need for changes to organisational structures and the creation of new and flexible ways of collaborating.
Academics acknowledge that the professional role of librarians has changed. However, this is generally seen in relation to a shift in technology rather than a move away from resource provision and process management. Interviews carried out in another UK HE institution identified similar perceptions of the role of
librarians by academic staff (McCluskey, 2011). There is little understanding of the contribution that librarians can make in the development of IL in its fullest sense. Some participants also saw little role for librarians in curriculum design, clearly influenced by their limited perception of our role. If librarians can change the perception that academics have of our role, then perhaps this will lead to librarians having a greater involvement in curriculum design. Jackson comments on the image and status of academic librarians, whom he sees are perceived as “an ‘accidental profession’, a second career choice, or a refuge for the timid” (1999, p.111).
It is therefore necessary for the profession to promote and develop skills and attributes and to manage the impression made on staff, so they see their librarian as a valuable contact, skilled in appropriate literacies and research, who is
capable ofdelivering what they need. In doing so, the profession must
reinvigorate and redefine the term Librarian rather than changing what they call themselves. Removal of the artificial barriers which exist between the LDU, librarians and academic colleagues would enable us all to deliver IL in a spirit of mutual collaboration, the “researchship” envisaged by one of our participants.
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This has implications for librarianship degrees which, in our experience,
consistently fail to prepare new practitioners for HE work. Instead of often being positioned as a media and communications subject, perhaps library and
information science should be seen as part of education enabling those that will one day teach gain a greater insight into the librarianship profession and its potential?
Some participants believed that they have good information skills, so do not need the help of a librarian. Yet they also criticised the poor “academic skills” of their colleagues. They were unaware that this might be an issue for them or indeed for their students and begs a question as to how librarians might encourage academic staff to reflect on their own literacy skills. In order to enhance the knowledge relationship between academics and librarians, librarians need to become more academic and academic staff need to become more aware of the value of
advanced IL skills, in themselves and in their students. Indeed, as one participant observed, the relationship between themselves and their librarian is key to
successful, collaborative initiatives.
Despite extensive discussion of student skills deficiencies described as “terrifying”, none of our academic participants actually used the term information literacy. There was, however, reference to “academic literacy” and “researchship”. We would argue that these are potentially more aspirational terms and that IL is synonymous with academic literacy as it encompasses a range of similar skills required from the point when information is needed, to the creation of new
knowledge and its ethical distribution. This suggests a disjunction in terminology used by academics and librarians and thus a requirement for a jointly acceptable definition and understanding of the skills required by the graduate of the future. There is ample evidence in the literature (see Myth 6, section 8.6) and from our participants to suggest that academics overestimate the skills taught at school. Given this disconnect, it is perhaps hardly surprising that many academics
complain about disengaged students, expecting them to be participatingin much higher levels of reflection and discussion than secondary education has equipped them to deal with. One of our participants sees this as a wider threat to society. If schools are not teaching people to think for themselves and universities fail to do so too, the outlook is bleak for society as a whole.
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Our participants are also concerned about the corporatisation of education, especially market led curriculum design, influenced by what is needed to sell the product rather than the pursuit of knowledge. This has resulted in traditional academic disciplines such as humanities being side-lined in favour of more
profitable courses such as business. They are also critical of the pre-eminence of employability skills, which has resulted in many students rejecting the pursuit of knowledge in favour of merely making the grade.
Indeed there is a further danger that obsession with what sells may lead
universities to overlook inconvenient truths that may not fit the marketing brief. We cite as an example the much trumpeted literacy testing introduced several years ago in our institution, the results of which were so alarming that the scheme was abandoned. Despite attempts to remove the problem by pushing up the A-Level tariff, significant numbers of students continue to arrive severely disadvantaged by a lack of academic skills. If students have a physical disability, the University is legally obliged to address their needs, as indeed is also the case with English language abilities. However there continues to be an absence of an effective strategy to help students overcome their literacy challenges which can arise out of contexts such as English as a second language and English not being spoken at home. To us the answer is clear. The way forward is a rigorous embedding of academic and IL skills into the curriculum as practicum, so critical appraisal of information and knowledge becomes the norm.
This leads on to concerns about who then should teach these literacies and how? There is awareness by our participants that some academic staff do not have the necessary skills, compounded by the reluctance of some to innovate and to collaborate with ‘support services’. Indeed, those academic colleagues who absent themselves from library workshops, for whatever the reasons, remain unaware of the information their students receive and the potential value of these skills to student achievement. As we repeatedly observe, the answer surely lies in a new curriculum for literacies which draws on the strengths of librarians, the Learner Development Unit, academics and other stakeholders.
Another factor highlighted is research snobbery. If research is seen as a key driver for academic prospects, it can mean that teaching is given low priority and
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devalued. If teaching is deemed unimportant, there is a risk that those who are perceived only to support teaching, such as librarians and the LDU, are also undervalued.
Given the importance of research to academics, there is a need for a social research space, either virtual or physical. This would enable those carrying out research to work, communicate, collaborate and share information in a
transdisciplinary manner. Librarians could contribute to the effectiveness of such a space through their transdisciplinary skills bringing together people and
information from different disciplines (Godin, 2011). Recent research evidences that librarians can in fact make a positive impact on research communities, making a much needed contribution to the improved IL skills of researchers (McCluskey, 2013). However research conducted for Research Libraries UK shows that while librarians are being increasingly integrated into research teams, their role is still passively supportive (Auckland, 2012). In view of space constraints at Middlesex University a virtual research environment could have significant advantages. Indeed we have already discussed the use of social media by undergraduate students to evaluate the quality of academic papers (Boukacem-Zeghmouri, 2014) and the library has investigated the possibility of using digital tools and
environments more suited to high level research. As many academic staff have become remote users of the library, perhaps the institutional use of social media such as Research Gate or Academia.edu may provide the answer.
Many of our participants are keen for librarians to become academics, as they have become increasingly divorced from the day-to-day running of the library. Veaner suggests that:
“One key to the improvement of librarian’s academic status may be further off-loading of their production work onto support staff. For librarians to reach genuine parity with faculty it is necessary to get librarians completely out of the ‘manufacturing’ business.” (Veaner in Jackson, 1999, p.110) However the quandary for us is how far we should take this. Should research active librarians remain in the library as practitioners or relocate to the academic domain as professors? As vocational professionals ourselves, the former is preferable, even though, as Jackson suggests, the image of librarians would be
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much enhanced if they are seen as being research active (1999). McCluskey agrees and further suggests that librarians can best support academic research within an institution by actively participating in practitioner research themselves. She advocates the concept of “embedded librarianship” linking our professional role with academic activity within the institution (2013, p.5). However, practitioner research within the library profession remains rare (Auckland, 2012; McCluskey, 2013) resulting in a discord between theory and practice (McCluskey, 2013). Indeed, this context statement is a rare example of practitioner research at
Middlesex University, which has given us a much better sense of research process and informed our own practice.
It has become apparent that IL should be fully integrated into the curriculum as a key component of wider academic literacies. Academic Literacy is key in the work of our LDU colleagues, who see “reading and writing as social practices that vary with context, culture and genre” depending on the practices of different academic communities at discipline and institutional levels (Lea and Street, 2010, p.368). Librarians have much to learn from this approach. Indeed, if the term academic literacy potentially has resonance for academic colleagues, is it better for librarians to talk about wider ‘academic literacies’ when broaching with them the input they might have in their curriculum?
Reflecting on all we have discussed so far, we believe that universities need to take a much wider view of current delivery models and see if they are fit for purpose. Just as departments, schools and faculties have become barriers to research across disciplines, if the answer for embedding transdisciplinary research is the withering away of old structures and the creation of new flexible ways of collaborating, then surely the same logic can be applied to the way in which librarians work with others to deliver IL as part of a wider academic literacies curriculum? There is clearly a need for better liaison between the library and
academics in order to nurture more productive and symbiotic working relationships. The profession and the University need to consider how we can spread good
practice, training and understanding in order to deliver our vision of an ANCIL type curriculum.
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Having identified and reflected on a range of issues surrounding students,
academics, and librarians; in particular skills, conservatism and image respectively; we will now explore the necessary drivers which will enable change to happen.
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16 Drivers of change
We have considered the growing importance of IL in academia and as a
fundamental contributor to lifelong learning within society. It has become clear to us that, within HE, librarians cannot develop IL alone and that the whole institution must be engaged in this process to drive forward change.
For the librarian of the future to become a tangible force within institutions, and especially in the development of IL and ethically sound research, they must embrace a different mind-set and develop new proficiencies. As Campbell suggests, librarians must be “drivers” not “passengers” (Campbell in Jackson, 1999, p.93) and be masters of our own destiny rather than leaving it to others to decide our fate (Jackson, 1999). Equally if the University is to truly embrace IL as an integral part of its educational ethos, then it must undertake what will inevitably be a highly political process in order to change the attitudes, aspirations and culture of the whole community.
Based on our research so far there are a number of factors which we believe will drive forward change. These are explored below.