Librarians play a key role in education. Librarians form relationships with subject specialists to build collections in the library to sustain classroom instructions. They provide instruction in the form of classes on library skills and conduct library instructional orientations sessions to assist students on class researches. Changes in technology with the use of electronically stored and retrieved information bring change to patrons and students on the access and use of information; the scheme on digital information changes the librarian as merely an “information providers or keepers of knowledge” to “knowledge navigators or information literacy instructors.”
Roles of information Professionals and Missions of Libraries
Through the fast development of the internet and its availability of large amount of information, the role of librarians is to teach critical thinking and resource-based learning. There are new vocabularies in education such as living curriculum, critical literacy, information power, and information problem solving. It leads to re-examine the roles as professional information providers and educators. Students need to obtain the skills of a valid evaluation on information. These new vocabularies bring new challenges in library instructions.
There is a great impact of digital information on library instruction and library services. The combination of instructional technology and the use of the internet to deliver instruction change the way on how libraries and librarians provide and assist instructors in the digital age. The ability to locate, evaluates, and cites information is a crucial part of the educational process for students today. The resource-based learning combines both critical thinking strategies and effective use of information. The process of learning is used effectively from first grade up to the tertiary level. New skills like problem solving, information literacy and critical literacy are skills that students must acquire for them to function effectively in the current work environment.
Basic Principles of Information Ethics
Information ethics is a discipline in library and information science. Information ethics is a convergence of the ethical concerns of media, journalism, computer ethics that includes cyber ethics, management information ethics, information system ethics, and information policy. It is adopted by faculty in schools of computer science. Some institution in the United States, computer science departments focus on theoretical dimensions of computer science. For example, they are concerned with the completeness or its consistency of the programming language while others includes the applied dimensions.
However, information ethics is not the exclusive possession of the discipline of information science. It is easy to identify group domains that are distinct but share a concern on overlapping set of ethical problems. Ethical problems are seen as contributors to a broader information ethics. Arguments of information ethics in the discussion of information science tend to grow on the ethics of librarianship. Media and press ethics, computer and internet ethics, governance and business ethics are concern with, among other issues, most of the same ground as the ethics of librarianship.
This professional convergence that is driven by the fast development of internet and digital access concerns with social equity and justice or matters of the ownership of information that shows differing faces across all of the domains with its core of intellectual freedom issues, privacy, and secrecy. Among the areas that are not, obvious at a first momentary look is the governance and business ethics but the tension between the revelation or distribution of information is the center of all. There is a central dialogue that concerns what the holders of political and economic power genuinely need to conceal and what they are obliged to reveal to society in the interests of individual welfare and social good.
Information Life Cycle
There are different meanings of the word “information” defined in different contexts by different groups. There are no proper definitions of the words like data and information. According to Bratteteig and Verne, information is commonly defined as a data that is interpreted in which data is utilized to represent information.
The cycle of information starts with ideas or knowledge, those are conceived by individuals with brilliant minds. The ideas are formulated and additional information is adjoined. The information is accumulated and preserved as data. The information is used with the support of some tools to process the information that leads to the formation of a new knowledge for the benefit of the users.
Core Tenets of the Library Profession
In modern librarianship, its foundation rests on a vital set of core principles. It defines, informs, and guides the professional practices. These principles reflect the history and the development of the profession; its advancement and expansion through numerous policy statements of the American Library Association (ALA). Among these are access, privacy, democracy diversity, education and lifelong learning, intellectual freedom, preservation, public good, professionalism, service, and social responsibility.
These policies are carefully articulated, debated, and approved by the council of ALA. It is interpreted, revised, or expanded as necessary. Ultimately, the core principles embodied in these policies is embraced by the majority of librarians as the foundations of their practice.
Question One:
Identify, describe, and briefly discuss the primary mission of libraries and some of the primary roles of librarians in today’s U. S. society.
Response One:
The primary mission of libraries is to provide a more comprehensive resources and good services in support of the research, teaching, and learning needs of the patrons and students in the community. The mission is committed to build collections and create tools to support the research, teaching, and learning needs of its users. It provides access and promotes the discovery of local and external information resources. Librarians ensure the preservation and long-lasting availability of library collections and resources. In addition, libraries focus in the advancement in local, national, and international library and information initiatives and to develop, encourage and sustain expertise, skill, commitment and an innovative spirit in its management.
The stakes are high, from a social, cultural, and economic point of view. Libraries play a fundamental role in the society. As collectors and stewards of heritage, libraries are organizers of the knowledge in the books they collect. There is an assurance of equality of access for all citizens. Libraries take the knowledge of the past and present, and lay it down for the future. By bringing it online, libraries make it easier for citizens in the society to appreciate culture and the common history. The internet provides an incredible opportunity to circulate information to its advantage globally. For example, the use of computer or internet database to search titles and subjects is more pertinent today compare to the article is published. When searching multiple lists of journals by the use of computer database merely saves the time, compare to do it through physical retrieval of the journal. Around the country, libraries including the academic institutions replace their card catalogs with online access catalogs. Librarians adapted the technology to cope with a cataloging crisis caused by growing numbers of items to process and their mission is be known as technology specialist instead of being a archetype librarians.
Today the role of libraries and professional librarians is changing worldwide. They are no longer passive keepers and preservers of books; rather, they have evolved to become facilitators of information and lifelong learning opportunities with an emphasis on service, identifying user needs and communicating solutions. Modern libraries are unfolding the community’s learning potential by providing information on community issues, such as health, employment, continuing education, and local history. This equitable access to information is essential to enable educated and informed citizens to participate in a democratic global community.
Libraries are also custodians of the local and national culture by storing popular and academic knowledge and material for current and future generations. Public libraries play the most important role worldwide in helping to bridge the information gap by providing free access to information and communication technologies, particularly the Internet. They are inclusive in that they build bridges between individuals at the local level and the global level of knowledge. In industrialized countries, access to modern information technology is currently one of the most attractive library services.
Question Two:
Based on the reading, do you believe that the current emphasis on electronic information access leads library and information science professional to neglect or aggressively pursue obligations such as organizing information, teaching people to use information, promotion of wisdom, etc.? In your response, take into account or mention political, economic, technological, and/or social forces that tend to drive issues pertaining to electronic information access.
Response Two:
The current emphasis on electronic information access leads library and information science professional to pursue obligations such as organizing information, teaching people to use information, and promotion of wisdom aggressively. Libraries worldwide access to digital information for people in the development and transition in countries involved. Librarians ensure the preservation and long-lasting availability of library collections and resources. In addition, libraries focus in the advancement in local, national, and international library and information initiatives and to develop, encourage and sustain expertise, skill, commitment and an innovative spirit in its management.
In the 1850s, technology developed a microfilm and in the mid 1960s, technology developed a Xerox machine. In 1970s, computerize databases are developed and information to use data to search more. Libraries are changed and updated through the advancement of technology in information. The opportunity to retrieve information via internet is accessible to the users instead of going to the library. New technologies are introduced to libraries; administrators formulate clever decisions to break down the finances for a long-term advantage for the library. It is important for library administrators to analyze every potion of the finances to obtain a good outcome.
The federation of digital library is concerned to major issues about the future of the digital libraries. The organization organized five challenges; these are architectural systems, practices and standards, compilation of progress, the function of digital libraries to the community, and access to digital libraries in a long-term manner. Libraries plan to adopt technology and to train workers and the users in a manner of proper actions. The environment of digital service environment is categorized as an online information network space that the users learn, establish, and obtain. The information format identifies no distinction.
References
Smith, K., Hallam, G., & Ghosh, S.B. (2012). IFLA Education and Training Section: Guidelines
for Professional Library/Information Educational Programs, Retrieved from http://www.ifla.org/publications/guidelines-for-professional-libraryinformation-educational-programs-2012
Laudon, M. (2013). Prenhall: Behind the Book: Ethical and Social Issues in Information System.
Chapter 4, Retrieved from http://www.prenhall.com/behindthebook/0132304619/pdf/laudon%20MIS10_CH-04%20FINAL.pdf
Runardotter, M., Quisbert, H., &Nilsson, J. (2005). The Information Life Cycle – Issues in
Long-term Digital Preservation, Retrieved from http://www.ltu.se/cms_fs/1.82663!/file/TheInformationLifeCycle.pdf
Katewill, W. (2006). Reading, Writing, Talking, Learning: Dominican GSLIS students
annotating Richard E. Rubin’s Foundations of Library and Information Science, second edition, Retrieved from http://people.lis.illinois.edu/~katewill/williams-reading-writing-teaching-learning.pdf
