Enabling the Enablers

Positioning Library and Information Science Professionals for the Future

Disciplinary and Professional Development of Library and Information Science -- LIS 391D.4 -- Fall 1997

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Abstract

This paper overviews current economic and demographic trends, new views of knowledge as a source of wealth, and the impacts these areas have on shaping library and information science curriculum to prepare information professionals to assume new roles. Areas discussed include teaching, knowledge management, organizing networked information, strategic planning, information policy making, study of knowledge domains, innovation systems, and collaboration. The author suggests that information professionals are favorably positioned to shape the knowledge based environment using the profession’s rich background of training, research, and experience as a base and adding new behaviors which include coping with continuous change, adopting lifelong learning practices, and actively collaborating with other professionals and researchers from all disciplines.

I. Introduction

This paper advances the idea that library and information professionals are favorably positioned to participate in the emerging knowledge based economy using their professional skills and background in research and experience organizing, synthesizing, evaluating, disseminating, and preserving information. However, information professionals need new skills to help others succeed in solving problems and to actively participate in creating new knowledge. These new skills include learning how to embrace continuous change and participating in continuous learning and collaborative interdisciplinary work.

II. Trends

The new source of wealth is not labor, land, or financial capital, but knowledge. An estimated 63 million information workers (52% of the labor force) exist in the United States economy alone. The information sector (including services) accounted for $3 out of every $4 of GNP in the United States in 1990 [1, p. 509].

The U. S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics defines knowledge workers as all those people in the labor force who primarily create new information or knowledge as opposed to processing and disseminating information and knowledge. Knowledge workers in professions such as engineering, law, science, architecture, and publishing exercise independent judgment and use creativity to innovate based on a large body of specialized knowledge, usually attaining advanced degrees and/or professional certifications. Knowledge work is supported by a codified body of knowledge that is generally and widely accepted as valid, that can generally be found in books stored in a library, and that can be taught at universities. Practitioners of the body of knowledge normally must prove their mastery of that knowledge by being certified, usually either by the state or by a university, and the profession must maintain standards of admission for the practitioner through regulation by independent professional associations that must maintain educational, professional, and ethical standards and guidelines. Knowledge workers contribute by interpreting the ever expanding external knowledge databases for their organization, keeping the organization abreast of developments in science, technology, the arts, and social thought areas that may result in business opportunities or risks. They serve as internal consultants and organizational change agents who monitor external developments in science and the arts, and are expected to evaluate and initiate change to take advantage of developments in these areas. This growing base of knowledge workers is contributing to the increasing amount of data and information available worldwide. The fastest growing industries in the employment projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics are listed as follows:

• Health Services
• Business Services including computer and data processing services, and
• Social Services.

In Information Technology Outlook, 1997 [3] published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group designed to promote policies which contribute to a healthy world economy, the following information technology issues are proposed as relevant in 1997:

• "Information Technology market trends with special focus on networked computing, the globalization of Information Technology industries, and the use of information technologies in the home,
• The use of electronic information systems by government to deliver services and the use of the information and communication technologies for lifelong learning, and
• Internet congestion, software developments such as data mining, and effects of Information Technology on the packaged goods industries such as supermarkets and department stores."

Overall advances in productivity and wealth depend on increasing the productivity of large and rapidly growing numbers of knowledge workers. Continuing advances in information technology are highly visible and have been linked to productivity, but simply providing advanced technology to knowledge workers does not guarantee productivity. Increased productivity requires an investment in learning so that knowledge workers can create and produce, not by simply accumulating knowledge, but by sharing it and using it. Globalization of markets, relaxation of trade restrictions, and advances in communication technologies are opening doors to distant locations, fostering wider exchange of information among people, unleashing creativity, reshuffling all forms of information sharing, and contributing to the treatment of information as a salable commodity in the world trade of ideas. Information as a commodity may not be a new concept, but it is one that is attracting new interest from business today. Knowledge workers are inventing new kinds of organizations which specialize in the preparation, production, and distribution of information to desktops, to people’s homes, and through libraries. Knowledge workers are creating new ways to harness and use this information to create knowledge and wealth.

Concurrent with the growing importance of the knowledge worker and information technologies, the United States population is aging. America’s population aged 65 or older grew by 82% between 1965 and 1995. Between 1980 and 1995, this same population grew by 28% to a historical high of 33.5 million people. Less than 25% of the population is younger than age 15 and another 57% is aged 30 or older. While one in eight Americans was 65 years of age or older in 1994, in a little more than thirty years, about one in five is expected to be in this age group [4, p. 2]. This group will require technologies that adapt to changing abilities to use information and communication tools.

The librarian workforce is also aging. In 1990, 48% of academic librarians were age 45 and over, compared with 58% in 1994, according to a survey sample conducted among 108 academic research libraries belonging to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) by Stanley Wilder [5, p. 1]. Libraries will need an influx of new information professionals with enhanced skill in creating and using new technologies and problem solving techniques useful to customers.

The trends identified, growth in knowledge workers and information technologies and aging of the United States population and the information professional workforce, foreshadow economic risks and at the same time represent opportunities.

Libraries are well positioned to address these challenges by providing people with a historical context, by facilitating connections and collaborations between people of all ages and abilities, and by providing people with content that can be accessed, analyzed, evaluated, reformulated, and applied to create new knowledge. Information professionals, using new technology tools with increasing skill, teaching others how to utilize available print and electronic resources, and collaborating with others to create additional methods to connect people with ideas, are important contributors to the knowledge based environment.

III. The Knowledge Based Environment

The commitment to invest in people and their potential to learn, process information, and use their minds to create innovations and new knowledge in collaboration with others is an important component of the developing knowledge based environment. Those who are now in the workforce need access to a wide range of learning and collaborative opportunities so that specific pieces of their specialized knowledge can be shared with others. Those who are in school will need opportunities to learn how to access, evaluate, and use information in theoretical and applied situations to keep pace with an increasingly knowledge based economy. Everyone will need to learn how to communicate, network, and collaborate with others using methods and technologies that extend well beyond face to face contact. Peter F. Drucker [6, p. 55] describes information professionals in a 1995 statement where he outlines what is needed in business,

"To think through what the business needs requires somebody who knows and understands the highly specialized information field. There is far too much information for any but specialists to find their way around. The sources are totally diverse. Companies can generate some of the information about themselves, such as information about customers and non-customers or about technology in one’s own field. But most of what enterprises need to know about the environment is obtainable only from outside sources--from all kinds of data banks and data services, from journals in many languages, from trade associations, from government publications, from World Bank reports, etc."

Drucker refers to data services and journals while some others think of information as sound and voice and visual combinations of text and video available on demand in digital form. To some, digital information has become a preferred form of information because it can be accessed conveniently. Increasingly, students and researchers are relying on computerized databases and Internet searches to locate and retrieve information, requiring that they develop the ability to critically compare and evaluate multiple sources of information.

Effective management, evaluation, and use of information is critical in the movement toward a knowledge based environment. The invention of collaborative methods and technologies that provide more efficient ways to access and distribute information resources are also critical in the movement toward a knowledge based environment. This is the work of the information professional.

IV. New roles expected for the Knowledge Based Economy

1. User Education
2. Knowledge Management
3. Organization of Networked Information Resources
4. Information Policy Development
5. Electronic Publishing and Curriculum Development
6. Strategic and Operational Planning

Creth sees Knowledge Management as a new role for librarians, characterizing it as one in which the librarian partners with others to create new information products and processes, manage information databases, locate information, and distribute it. Other people include acquiring, retaining, applying, evaluating, and sharing knowledge in the definition of knowledge management.

As an example, Jane Stewart, Karen Hlady, and Bibi Patel of BNR/Nortel [8, pp. 12-14] describe the corporate library services they provide, illustrating principles of knowledge management, management of intellectual capital, and delivery of information services directly tied to the customer’s value system. They focus on adding value to library services by aligning the library with BNR/Nortel’s strategic lines of business, consistently supplying information that has competitive significance and impact for the organization, measuring the qualitative impact of their services on the organization, and investing in building skill competencies for library staff members. They describe three levels of service, each of which demands increasing levels of competence and skill for the information professional. At level I, basic searching/sourcing services are offered to the customer and any follow-up is generally initiated by the customer. At level II, the service is more comprehensive, providing brief abstracts, synthesized information, and proactive outreach to the customer. At level III, the service delivered to the customer is exhaustive requiring creation of spreadsheets, reports, executive summaries, and analyzed data in flexible formats/media convenient to the customer. At level III the information professional establishes a teaming relationship with the customer in order to support that customer’s decision-making processes, requiring specialized knowledge in subject areas to collaborate with the specialist customer, knowledge of competitive intelligence techniques, and the ability to deliver information with a high degree of focus in a timely manner to the customer.

The third role for information professionals described by Creth is Organization of Networked Information Resources. This role applies to establishing methods for ensuring authenticity and providing physical and intellectual access to networked resources. This role also applies to bibliographic control practices used by information professionals. New skill sets for bibliographic control work are required to augment more traditionally required skills in cataloging original materials and upgrading member contributed cataloging copy. This role also requires experimentation and research to pioneer new methods of classification and coding of electronic resources so that the content they contain can be located easily and accurately by those who need it and so that authenticity can be determined. Job descriptions for metadata specialists are beginning to appear, defined as one whose job is to provide leadership in the development and use of metadata, data about data used to describe and provide access to information objects including electronic journals, spatial imagery, and economic data sets [9, p. 96]. Information professionals are assuming leadership roles in organizing and providing intellectual access to electronic resources as well as providing markup for electronic texts, which requires on the job training and classroom experience in ranges of knowledge that go beyond MARC, OCLC, and RLIN.

The Information Policy Development role includes making policy and exercising influence with policy makers to maintain intellectual access to content and reduce barriers to access. This role also requires acting forcefully to defend the principles of public access to information, intellectual property protections, the right to privacy, and freedom from censorship. Partnerships and close on-going communication with colleagues and professional groups is required to find creative answers to difficult ethical questions raised by new distribution methods and provide a strong voice in articulating positions which uphold the values of quality, universal access, cooperation, and the freedom to create and criticize. A combination of many ideas and many viewpoints is needed to shape the policies which affect access to information and communicate the value and importance of this access in the knowledge based economy.

The fifth role for information professionals Creth discusses is Electronic Publishing, a library outreach effort and activity providing support for others who wish to publish electronically. At universities and in other communities it has become commonplace for faculty, researchers, individuals, and non-profit groups to publish electronically. The information professional is a partner in this effort, often teaming with other information or multimedia specialists to learn and produce products in a collaborative partnership. Information professionals are becoming more active and sophisticated electronic publishers, placing the full content of resources online for worldwide access. Information professionals, reaching out to students in academic settings at remote locations and to the world at large, publish information about library and archival resources and place catalogs of holdings and finding aids online at nearly every major university library. Electronic publishing is bringing to the forefront difficult questions about intellectual property and the archival functions of the library. What methods of compensation are appropriate using these modes of production and distribution? What happens to the notion of an "edition" when one of a kind customized documents can be produced for individual customers on demand? How must copyright change to accommodate new publishing methods and distribution techniques? How do we preserve and make accessible for the future these complex digital objects which contain voice, image, sound, and video? Fred W. Weingarten, senior policy advisor at the ALA Washington Office, has described the situation by stating,

"If we are to continue to exist as a society with a ‘memory,’ we will need institutions that are responsible for assuring that resources are available indefinitely. We are entering an age in which copious information will be easily available, yet ephemeral as a mayfly" [10, p.17].

Weingarten further points out that information professionals not only need to be able to locate archival copies of information, but also must be able to assure that they are certifiably authentic.

Timothy J. McGovern and Helen W. Samuels [11] discuss the importance of collaborative partnerships among information technology staff, archivists, records managers, auditors, lawyers, and professional organizations when designing ways to protect and preserve the content, context, and structure of the electronic evidence of business activities in the university setting. Most organizations, including universities, have focused their risk assessment on disaster recovery, unauthorized access and use, and physical preservation of the media. However, another important risk area must be addressed: the logical preservation of the meaning and functionality of the electronic record must be retained to fully support the legal, administrative, and historical needs of an organization. The exposure to risk can be broad and the situations complex, such as loss of transcript information details after migration of databases to new systems, deletion of e-mail messages providing case file background information that make them unavailable for use in legal disputes, and failure to retain progressive versions of budget projections that make them unavailable for later comparison. Systems that are time-bound and context stamped, unchangeable once created, and redundant so that old data are viewed as being just as valuable as new data are not yet fully perfected. McGovern and Samuels suggest that a collaborative group of archivists and information technology staff develop model policies for creation, retention, and access to electronic records that everyone can use, that professional groups which share common problems jointly develop projects to provide a common set of recommendations that will carry greater weight because of combined effort and expertise, and that collaboration between groups be used to influence vendors to incorporate appropriate standards and record-keeping requirements into the products they market.

Creth’s final description of a new role is Strategic and Operational Planning. In defining the librarian’s role in strategic planning and thinking, Creth advocates changing the hierarchical function-based organizational structure of the library. She suggests that library organizations need to become much more fluid and that librarians take on the role of change agent and base their planning on fact finding and discussions with users rather than on assumptions that they know what users need based on past experience alone. Strategic planning is done using collaboration and teamwork. Decisions on priorities and directions for the organization are reached using consensus skills and fact finding techniques that librarians and information professionals may need to learn in order to apply them. Strategic planning maps plans into goals and activities for each individual information professional to perform and holds the individual accountable for achievements directly tied to programs that are mission critical to the organization as a whole. This type of planning provides for continuous updating and re-prioritizing of goals and the elimination of services and programs that are no longer critical or needed by users in environments facing rapid change.

As an example, at the University of Washington Libraries, Seattle [12], librarians and information technologists from the Computing and Communications section of the University applied these skills to provide integrated information services to their customers. With the customers’ satisfaction as the overarching goal, their focus of work shifted to processes and services rather than organizational structures and single functions. The heavily hierarchical structures already in place in the institution shifted into more fluid and flexible team approaches to keep pace with work requirements which demanded rapid change and the ability to deal with uncertainty in the environment. To accomplish the transition from hierarchical structures to using team approaches, individual team members made a commitment to adopt team goals, placing more importance in them than in individual goals. To accomplish the team goals, individuals learned new skills, new behaviors, and acquired new personal knowledge to interact in the team environment. The more fluid team based organizational culture employed strategies which introduced flexibility and continuous planning for change into its structure, used outsourcing as a way to expand resources, created joint mission statements among collaborators, and negotiated ways to achieve synergistic effects to accomplish jointly established goals.

In another instance, Martin D. Ringle [13], Director of Computing and Information Services at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, discusses his research findings on how twenty independent colleges and universities are forecasting financial priorities for technology. They are finding ways to finance the implementation of mission critical programs involving rapidly changing technologies, increased user demands for technology, and considerable investment of financial capital. He finds signs of increasing collaboration across functions in performing financial planning for technology deployment and on-going maintenance. Colleges are bringing telecommunications, instructional media, and other services together with computing, networking, and distance education functions to implement and provide for the ongoing maintenance of new initiatives. In 1989, none of the schools in the reference group had a plan that embraced both technology groups and libraries, while in 1997, 12% of the colleges and universities in the research group have included the library in collaborative planning and financing of information systems that fulfill their on campus and distance education missions [13, p. 8]. The education community is realizing that a local collection of computers and networks in individual faculty offices and departments does not substitute for a library integrated with the whole of the university and college enterprise. Through collaboration, information professionals have the opportunity to promote discussion of the integrity of information, preservation, access, indexing, and maintenance with others who are deeply involved in building and financing a university information infrastructure that promotes scholarship, research, and the creation of new knowledge.

V. Other Perspectives on New Roles

Researchers Birger Hjorland and Hanne Albrechtsen suggest that the work of librarians and information scientists should provide generalized knowledge about paradigms, methodologies, and tendencies in knowledge production. To prepare information professionals for their work, they advocate classroom study of knowledge in its larger historical, social, organizational, and political context. [14, p. 418]. New views of knowledge increasingly stress the social, ecological, and content-oriented nature of knowledge and how it is organized. Some believe the information objects themselves should be studied; while others believe the model to use in organizing knowledge is to study how people think; still others advocate that studying how people interact with potential sources is a way of determining how best to organize information; and yet others think the approach to take is to study communication -- how people construct questions and create answers to questions. Instruction on the "whats" of knowledge are no longer enough. Instruction today requires emphasis on the "whys" and "whens" of knowledge and requires drawing upon multiple disciplines and approaches to uncover the sociocultural context that has become an essential component in knowledge creation for increasing numbers of knowledge workers and scholars. The formation of knowledge rests on a communication relationship between a community and its members and is greatly influenced by the philosophic histories and roots of specific disciplines that are represented in the community by its members. Hjorland and Albrechtsen tell us that there is an interplay between domain structures and individual knowledge and an interaction that takes place at the individual level and the social community level which results in new knowledge. Knowledge about the cultures and social communities in which information systems are functioning becomes an important component of research and a driving force in the actual production of new knowledge, wealth, and well-being for societies.

Business consultant Debra M. Amidon [15] describes a knowledge innovation system for creating and managing new knowledge. The Amidon model consists of an architecture with five interrelated dimensions: People, Process, Technology, Structure, and Performance. These five further integrate with economic, behavioral, and technological frameworks in the organization. The innovation system helps determine outcome measurements, gather the appropriate people with specialized knowledge together for problem solving, define appropriate structures, develop cross organizational processes, and provide the information/knowledge support systems needed to perform collaborative work for the success of the enterprise, but also to benefit the individual and society. She emphasizes the value of people in this statement.

"As we approach the next millennium, we find ourselves, as individuals, groups, organizations, and nations, rethinking the way we interact. Instead of analyzing barriers, we are seeking common ground for action. Instead of focusing on conflict resolution, we are defining new ways of learning with one another so that we may define a better future for us all. This is reflected in many of the current managerial practices today, such as teaming, networking, and action learning. We are realizing the true value of an individual within the organization and how that human talent can best be harnessed to sustain the profitable growth of the enterprise and the individual" [15, p. 4].

The information technologies we use and how we use them to construct information infrastructure provide critical links between human creativity, productivity, and benefits for society. Collaboration across public and private sector activities are considered essential to building this country’s information infrastructure and to building a productive and creative environment in which to live and work. Lewis M. Branscomb [16], Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, outlines the social returns expected from public and private investment in one initiative aimed at providing an advanced information infrastructure linking the federal government, academia, and the private sector, the National Research and Education Network (NREN):

• An improved (in quality and equity) system of public and private education -- a smarter, more capable society.
• Efficient and accessible means for diffusing, sharing, and applying knowledge -- a more productive society.
• A more productive research and innovation system for creating knowledge -- a more creative society.
• Lowered barriers to access to knowledge resources -- a more equitable society.
• An improved decision-making basis for collective efforts to secure educational, environmental, economic, health, safety, and security goals -- a wiser, more caring society [16, p. 21].

VI. Information Professionals Are Well Suited To Assume New Roles

Libraries have earned a reputation as being places that support the educational aspirations of the community, contain knowledge of the past and present, and make it available to be used by all. The information professionals who work in libraries have demonstrated leadership in shaping positive public opinion in favor of publicly supported libraries over the years. They have developed traditions of putting libraries in front of people, making them easily accessible to people of all circumstances. They have crafted slogans such as Melvil Dewey’s "The best reading for the largest numbers at the least cost," from over one hundred years ago, that have shaped public opinion and regard for the library as a good bargain and a good investment. Libraries continue to represent places "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding among people...," as stated in the Charter of the Carnegie Corporation nearly seventy five years ago. The positive public opinion of libraries positions information professionals, using the confidence already gained, to move firmly into roles which adapt to the knowledge based environment and economy.

Librarians and information scientists have demonstrated scholarship and research acumen with developments in documentation led by Paul Otlet and Henri LaFontaine, who founded the International Institute for Bibliography in 1895, spawning a number of specialties and fertile fields for research across disciplines in the creation, transmission, collection, classification, and use of documents. Central to Otlet’s work was the development of technical, theoretical, and organizational techniques to solve the problem of how to make recorded knowledge available to those who need it. Some have linked the much later development of hypertext back to the work done by Otlet [14, p. 415]. Research methodologies such as bibliometrics, defined as the scientific study of recorded discourse, have been used and developed in library research and other science research areas and have gained authority and respect.

Librarians and information scientists contributed the MARC record and the ability to exchange data, resources, and knowledge about resources between computers before most industries had thought of resource exchange and collaboration as a productive goal. Data processing techniques migrated into information processing techniques, and librarians and information scientists again led the way in understanding the importance of data retrieval and the difficulties inherent in matching a request for information with the user’s real need. Researchers such as Nicholas J. Belkin provided research that opened the doors of thought and research on how human communication and information in particular must be studied in terms of social objectives, group dynamics, and other social variables. Belkin’s goal for research was, through scientific activity, to produce useful knowledge in solving problems associated with the objects of his study. Other researchers have produced work that has been used to address training for librarianship, training for information science research, methods of managing information resources, techniques for providing service, ways of evaluating libraries and information services, and the development of new information systems and products. Research has been both system centered and user centered in the library and information science discipline.

Librarians and information scientists have been good forecasters of future need. Philosophies that were put forth years ago still hold true today. Jesse Shera [18], an educator and philosopher, taught that librarianship is the management of knowledge and that library science is an interdisciplinary discipline; this sounds strikingly similar to what business leaders are hoping to accomplish today -- knowledge management. Jesse Shera also contributed the idea of social epistemology, described as a synthesis of the interaction between knowledge and social activity, which sounds strikingly similar to what people hope to participate in today -- a global society which uses collaboration as a mechanism to achieve and produce. Jesse Shera advocated that librarians should serve as guides/resource people and that ideas should be the primary concern of librarianship; this holds true today, augmented by changes in technology which have made processes, tools, and computers ready aids to assist the information professional in connecting people with ideas and guiding them to information that meets their needs. Jesse Shera’s idea of "putting knowledge to work" by connecting people with ideas sounds very much like the management practices of the knowledge based environment which place value on new knowledge created by connecting people, technology, and information to form new business processes. The humanistic and social philosophies developed and used in professional practice provide a solid base for operation in an environment where geographically dispersed people and information resources are now more easily connected using communications technology.

Strong ties have been forged between library and information science and many other disciplines that share an interest in information, knowledge, and communication. Anthropology, linguistics, sociology, the cognitive sciences, communication sciences, educational research, computer science, artificial intelligence, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and especially, the social sciences, can all be named as partners and contributors to research in library and information science. Certainly advances in library science and information professionals have contributed to research projects conducted by professionals and scientists in each of these areas of inquiry. The profession which uses as its guiding laws "Every reader his book" and "The Library is a growing organism" certainly fits well into today’s environment where the tangible, textual document or graphic record has been augmented with multimedia communication and ready access to the Internet and other electronic media resources. The library, by whatever name is used to describe it, from information resource center to knowledge production center, has a place in today’s environment where knowledge is thought of as fuel for growth, a product of collaboration, and an entity that changes and shifts and modifies each time new knowledge is added. Library and information science is a discipline equipped to deal with the management of information resources in order to maximize the use of recorded knowledge for the benefit of individuals, organizations, and for society at large. Library and information science is a discipline that shares boundaries with and connects with other disciplines which study information storage and retrieval, human-computer interaction, networking, data management, telecommunications, knowledge engineering, computer systems, social demographics, organization theory, and communication. The work done in libraries is interdisciplinary, boundary spanning work which affects society. As Jesse Shera put it,

"Though the library is an instrumentality created to maximize the utility of graphic records for the benefits of society, it achieves that goal working with the individual and through the individual, it reaches society" [19, p. 48].

Today, in this time of rapid technological change, librarians and information professionals are being called upon to become teachers, collaborators, continuous active learners, and producers to promote the utilization of knowledge for the benefit of all. In the City of Littleton, a suburb of Denver, Colorado, the skills of the reference librarian are being applied to develop a program to create jobs, wealth, and opportunity by nurturing local companies [20]. The program is led by economists Paul Romer and Brian Arthur, who apply the term "economic gardening" to this work. The librarian is helping Littleton companies stay competitive by supplying information about the best ideas, practices, and technology that are directly applicable to their interests. The librarian helps find information and solutions to business problems such as creating marketing lists, tracking industry trends, and spotting new product research, and is part of the team helping to build an intellectual infrastructure for the city. The library in Littleton also serves as the classroom where engineering classes are conducted via a microwave communications link with the University of Colorado. This collaboration places the library in the center of long-term community building aimed at creating an educated work force and economic prosperity. The library building, with its communications facilities and links to research institutions, is one part of the infrastructure. The information professionals who are able to use reference skills in problem solving and technology as a business tool are part of the production system that links ideas with people, creates new knowledge, and benefits society.

Information professionals are suited to assume new roles, to use their foundational values to help connect people with ideas, and to benefit society. But there are challenges to be met in order to remain effective in the knowledge based environment, such as financing the cost of universal access and replacing the aging professional workforce in libraries. One challenge for the profession today is the definition and provision of universal service in the electronic marketplace, which is constrained by the costs of development and installation of content delivery mechanisms. Policies that assure that libraries are provided with affordable access to telecommunications services are needed to ensure that each library building can provide access to all. Another challenge is the growing world marketplace of privately gathered and held information products being sold directly to consumers at high prices. Library financing is not keeping pace with price elevations and some of these resources will not be widely available through libraries without significant, sustainable financial collaboration between public and private parties. Information is not free, nor are the staffing and processing required to organize and deliver it to the end user. Anne W. Branscomb, an affiliate of the Harvard University Program on Information Resources Policy, offers the solution of combining tax dollars and charitable dollars to expand the domain of information available to all,

"If we wish to expand the public domain of information we, as citizens, must vote with our tax dollars or donate with our charitable dollars to the public institutions of learning and archived knowledge. Otherwise we will continue to rely, as we seem to be doing, upon our choices as consumers in shopping malls of the global information marketplace" [21, p. 8].

A significant additional challenge is to educate more information professionals to replace an aging workforce. Annual graduation rates in library science have declined over the past twenty years, dropping from 8,037 in 1975-1976 to 4,845 in 1996 [22, p.64] and at the same time, large numbers of librarians are expected to be retiring and leaving the profession as reported by Stanley Wilder [5, p. 5]. Wilder concludes his report with a potential solution:

"Librarianship has a record of successful adaptation, most notably in its adoption of new technologies. The next adaptation will require that librarianship translate its print-centered expertise in the evaluation, selection, organization, and preservation of information to the new digital environment. Competition for this new role will be intense, however, and the advantages will go to groups that can combine traditional "librarian" skills with technical and managerial ones. If librarianship is successful in claiming this role, the new skill mix may well be recognized in the form of expanded opportunity and higher salaries, making librarianship a career of first choice for more young people" [5, p.4].

VII. Implications for the Education of the Information Professional

Adapting To and Embracing Continuous Change

The challenge in embracing change is to be prepared to step into unfamiliar new roles on a moment’s notice. This requires breadth of knowledge, flexibility, and less attachment to a singular function. It is quite natural to specialize, and individuals with specialized knowledge are necessary to contribute to the goals negotiated by teams. But specialization cannot be allowed to fragment knowledge or divide people into small, exclusive groups or functions that are narrow in outlook and interest. This will not work in environments which require creativity, risk taking, adjustment to rapid change,and self-sufficiency in the face of uncertainty. To adapt to and embrace change, students will need to learn to be flexible and to build shared missions and goals with others. Today’s work environment thrives on the interrelationship of the parts rather than a focus on discrete functions which comprise the whole. Work environments for the future are likely to be even more team based with fluid non-hierarchical structures emphasizing networking, integration, openness, and breadth in outlook over specialization.

Students need to learn to create strategic plans, developing the communication, negotiation, and consensus building skills that are essential parts of this planning process, as a technique to help learn how to adapt to and embrace change. Also needed in the knowledge based environment is experience in listening to diverse viewpoints and creatively incorporating them into mutually agreed upon goals and plans. Learning to recognize differences in perspectives and to express, address, and balance differences are skills that expand the individual’s ability to give constructive feedback and offer suggestions for improvements with confidence.

Students must learn to formulate outcome measurements and calculate the value of information, including both the value added to the information by the information professional and the value experienced by the users/customers and the organizations where it is used. Practice measuring, calculating, and expressing the value of information in concrete terms will also assist in translating professional values into policy statements and will help develop information professionals who can articulate compelling arguments and successfully participate in fulfilling the mission of the parent organization. As champions for the values embodied by the library and the work of the profession to connect ideas with people, information professionals must be articulate advocates for policy development which explains and promotes those values in each new situation. Students need to develop a sense of confidence in their ability to deal with change and embrace it as a part of the knowledge based environment.

Continuous Learning

As knowledge workers, information professionals can expect to be continuous lifelong learners. In the knowledge based economy, learning is productivity, and the new nature of work. This learning will extend beyond the classroom, and will occupy a part of each day -- learning with others, learning through teaching others, and learning through conducting research, creating new tools, and producing information.

The information professional holds a dual role in the productivity/work process: one role is as a continuous learner, and the other is as a facilitator to the learning of others when providing direct client services. Business encourages continuous learning with techniques and methods such as teaming, networking, and managing/combining the intellectual assets of organizations so that everyone benefits. These techniques and methods also apply in libraries to facilitate the customer’s as well as the information professional’s learning process. Students will need to adopt the perspective that learning is a lifelong pursuit combining both formal and informal learning opportunities and that the continuous acquisition of new skills is a basic requirement in the knowledge based environment.

Students will need practical experience with both hard copy and electronic service delivery techniques and products to gather and access information using traditional and newer resources in tandem. The emphasis should be placed on the goals of successfully integrating electronic and traditional resources into a total collection, acquiring and maintaining an up-to-date knowledge of information availability, and developing the skills necessary to correctly analyze questions and communicate.

Communication skills, essential now, will continue to be important. Students will need practical experience in communicating with diverse types of users and settings -- not all information seekers will be coming to the library. In many cases, the information professional will be providing information at a distance, transmitting knowledge to users/customers at distant locations using communication skills that do not involve face to face interactions. Communication skills required will go beyond reading, writing, and listening to using all senses, and the social and cultural differences of an increasingly globalized world must be acknowledged as well as the message that is being communicated. The skill set must include knowledge of interactive design, dynamic images, paths for navigation, use of visual language techniques, knowledge of and use of spatial reasoning, and graphical and visual languages that are easy to understand, use, and view. Electronic media may well bring other new dimensions to the traditional communication roles shared by the writer and reader, listener, or viewer. The information professional must be skilled in the roles of both the receiver of communication in its many and varied forms as well as the creator, editor, and publisher of communications that represent the library, the profession, and their individual contributions to the knowledge based economy.

Collaboration at Work, in Learning, and in Research

Information professionals need to have the teamwork and networking skills necessary to be active community partners and collaborators in research, learning, and work with other professionals across a variety of disciplines. Classroom coursework for information professionals which links with as many disciplines as possible can illustrate the collaboration that can occur with disciplines which border library and information science. The variety of viewpoints and perspectives brought into the classroom from research founded in other knowledge domains, such as computer science, communication science, educational research, and management science, will help information professionals build competencies to work with a variety of communities.

Information professionals may will be the creators of the next generations of information systems that require little or no learning time for customers, that advance the very concept of communication, and that are adaptable to meet varying physical abilities. But they will not be creating and producing upcoming generations of these systems alone. These innovations will be accomplished through collaboration with other experts, customers who intend to use the systems, and professional groups and societies. The knowledge needed to develop these tools will come from the combined efforts of people in library and information science, computer science, communication science, sociology, and medical studies. Students of library and information science must learn that "impossible" questions can be answered using interdisciplinary collaboration and research. Combining human creativity and various parts of the overall knowledge system results in innovations that produce both economic profit and social benefit.

We have much to learn from others, and much to teach. In team environments everyone has the opportunity to become a leader, to form new interrelationships, to accomplish goals, and to create new knowledge. Findings from an Ernst and Young survey [23] of over four hundred senior executives in Europe and North America indicate what characteristics make a difference in knowledge management and leadership in the 1990s.

Leader characteristics in knowledge management include:

• Clearly articulating a vision of what the knowledge agenda and knowledge management for their business is about
• A holistic perspective that embraces strategic, technological and organizational perspectives.
• Use of effective communications.
• Use of human networking internally and externally.
• Good teamwork, with team members drawn from many disciplines.
• A culture of openness and inquisitiveness that stimulates innovation and learning.
• Incentives, sanctions, and personal development programs to change behaviors.

VIII. Conclusion

As such, information professionals face a growing need to develop skills to effectively and quickly teach others how to use the gateways, equipment, and tools necessary to access remote sources of information. They also must develop sophisticated production and communication skills to become creators and distributors of information required in the knowledge based economy. In the knowledge based environment, they must become adept at building fluid and flexible structures that adapt to rapid and continual change, and must learn to work comfortably in environments that are continuously changing. They need to reshape and renew themselves to promote the work of the information professional so that it becomes a profession of choice for young people. Information professionals also need to form communities of knowledge practice and alliances with people from other disciplines, and actively participate in these groups to learn, help create knowledge, evaluate its validity, preserve it, and transmit it to others.

Researchers have been described as "bricoleurs", "jacks of all trades", a professional "do-it-yourself," accomplishment-minded person who develops solutions to problems using whatever methods and techniques are conveniently at hand or, if not, can readily be invented or adapted. The information professional is a "bricoleur" of sorts, with the added advantage of having many collaborators and many disciplines to use in problem solving and a rich heritage of successful practice, research, and technique to draw upon to establish a valued place in the knowledge based economy. The information professional has the opportunity to expand the boundary lines of the profession by using both the tools that technology provides and the collaborative work and learning processes that management practices offer. The work of the information professional, connecting ideas and people, continues to be needed and has, if anything, an expanding role in the knowledge based economy.

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