New Academic Year 16/17 at CityLIS London Library School

Posted on September 18, 2016 by Dr Lyn Robinson

Image by @ludiprice cc-by

Thoughts around my talk planned for Induction this year. For reference, as I most likely won’t stick to the script.

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Library & Information Science

I am delighted to welcome our new and returning students to the #citylis London Library School, as we start the academic year for 16/17. This year we are celebrating joining the University of London to become City, University of London. This new association will bring many benefits, including access to new resources, wider perspectives, and a higher profile for the work we do, and for our students and alumni.

Library and information science (LIS) addresses the questions arising from documentation of the human record. We explain this by saying that LIS research and practice focuses on the categories of activity comprising the information communication chain, shown below:

Information Communication Chain – @lynrobinson cc-by

The processes of the information communication chain are often associated with information literacy, and information professionals practice, share and promote the skills and abilities which facilitate information literacy, and more recently, digital literacies.

Another way to consider the goals of library and information science is from the perspective of scholarly communication. That is, the examination of the ways in which knowledge is created, accessed, developed, communicated, validated, preserved and re-used. The processes of scholarly communication are related to those of the broader information communication chain, and our course content will highlight issues (e.g. scholarly publishing and open access) drawn from these related perspectives.

Whilst we often use the term ‘scholarly’ in LIS discussion, our focus on understanding (see recent work by Bawden and Robinson) is intended to be inclusive, that is, of relevance to anyone from any sector of society, not solely those associated with the academy.

Changes and developments in the processes of the communication chain and in scholarly communication occur as a result of several factors. These are referred to as drivers or agents for change. The principle change agent is technology. The move within scholarly communication to digital processes has had a significant impact on the work of the LIS sector, especially in higher education and the research lifecycle, but technological changes also impact information processes within the wider community.

Whilst many definitions of LIS refer to keeping the record of humanity, it may be that we now need to expand our model, to consider documentation of the machine record, in light of contemporary developments in technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, resulting in an autonomous ability to create text, art, music etc.

Our core module DITA (Digital Information Technologies and Architecture)* sets out and explores the technological landscape as it relates to LIS. We are, however, mindful that in technology perhaps more than other subjects, today’s news is tomorrow’s recycled notepaper. Our learning ambitions look towards sustainability; we seek the ‘i’ in ‘data’, rather than the latest device. Although #citylis students have the option to take more specific computing modules as their elective, if this is of interest, our core computing content is carefully weighted towards the use of technology in helping us to answer the globally significant questions of documentation, which include:

how to understand the nature of documents
how to record and organise documents
how to facilitate and promote access to information
how to ensure equality in access to information
how to preserve documents
how to choose what to preserve
the ethics of documentation, including preservation, access and use
how to analyse documents to create new knowledge
how to use what we know to promote understanding

Google search for peace, love, understanding. Screenshot by @lynrobinson on 18/09/16 cc-by

Technology is often compelling, but other drivers for change must be appreciated, including politics, economics and social trends. We shall consider all of these factors as we progress through our course material.

Additionally, we will examine the role philosophy plays in providing a framework of guidance for LIS research and practice. We will look specifically at the philosophy of information as authored by Luciano Floridi, but the work of other philosophers and theorists in relation to information, documentation and communication will be introduced.

A related thread, running across the whole course, is ethics. Library and information professionals have long been engaged with ethical behaviour, in respect of issues of censurship, privacy, and equality of access. Our contemporary society, within which we cannot help but leave a digital footprint, requires us to re-examine what is meant by privacy, and to establish and understand the consequences for what we give away, perhaps unknowingly, when we use digital network services.

Manifestations of ‘ethics in action’ then, include questions posed to the scholarly community by open access, open data, and open educational resources, but also societal questions posed by access to network services, use of the internet and social media, and the impact of big data. Library and information professionals have a responsibility not only to promote ethical information behaviour, but to contribute to its definition and evolution.

Whilst core LIS material including information history, information resources, retrieval, management and use, is still very much prevalent and emphasized within our syllabus, I would like to introduce more of our new content. LIS is a broad discipline, and there is always more material than we can cover within the timescale of our masters programme. Course content is selected primarily according to the expertise, interests and understanding of our #citylis teaching team, benefiting further from the significant input of external colleagues, practitioners, alumni and current students.

One of the most noticeable areas rising to prominence for the LIS professional is data management. Within the academic and research sector, this is often written and talked about in respect of research data management, but the wider phrase, ‘data curation’, invites a broader audience from LIS workers within the social, cultural and heritage sectors to consider issues of documentation (Robinson 2016). Alongside data management, where we can envisage a data file as a document, there is the need for data metadata, i.e. data about the data. Standards in this area are just starting to emerge, as are repositories for data, directories of data repositories, data papers, and journals about data.

The increasing availability of APIs allows datasets to be searched, analysed, re-used, remixed and reimagined. APIs govern the data we can access from the massive collections accrued by social media, scientific, commercial and government bodies. Of course data collectors may not share willingly, and the contrast within our society between the increasingly visible open access/data movement, and closed data capture systems is striking. Knowledge is power, and keeping closed datasets has potential benefits for some, yet disadvantages for others.

We will also consider analysis of data. Analytics, counting things, affects us all. We have witnessed recently a striking duality in LIS, between qualitiative, informational analysis, and the contrasting quantitative approach.

These practices are already significant informational activities in disciplines from science to the humanities, and the library and information science community is ideally placed to comment on, facilitate and contribute.

Returning to more familiar territory, we are also introducing a focus on libraries, librarianship and library spaces, in relation to the current socio-political climate, and as considered alongside the historical use of space in the library, and public spaces in general.

On a more conceptual level, we will be pushing the boundaries of our discipline to consider the future of documents, the relevance and meaning of understanding, and the ways in which philosophical insight can contribute to practice within the sector.

Social Media and Communication

In addition to its forward-looking socio-technical focus, #citylis is also known for the promotion of communication and networking skills. These skills are commonly referred to within the mixed bag of ‘soft skills’, which are highly regarded by employers in all sectors. Whilst this umbrella phrase is somewhat unappealing, good communication skills have long-lasting appeal. They work even when the technological systems we use have returned to plastic dust. It will come as no surprise to anyone joining our cohort, that students and staff are encouraged to engage with and beyond their cohort via social media, as well as via more traditional scholarly output mechanisms. Our course actively promotes professional writing skills, and we consider reflective learning, practice and research throughout the year. We realise that not everyone is comfortable posting their own original material to a public forum, but we do everything we can to ensure a supportive environment, and we do require all our students to be aware of the nature, functions and advantages of social media from the LIS perspective.

We use blogs and Twitter to promote and discuss our course material, to share resources, research ideas, practice tips, to start discussions on current issues, highlight events, and to create a community of past, current and future students beyond the physical classroom, and the constraints of the course timescale. Further, we use social media tools to engage with the wider profession, and others who may not have encountered LIS before.

We are also aware of the negative side of social media engagement, and we hope to equip all our students with the skills to identify, be resilient to, and to avoid contributing to social media’s dark side. This includes online obsession, trolling, abusive or passive-aggressive posts, boast-posts, oversharing, and posting whilst drunk, otherwise intoxicated or merely very angry (!).

Whilst for resource reasons we stick to blogs and Twitter, we encourage any of our students to engage with other social media platforms in a professional capacity. Social media applications, especially those handling multimedia, are key communication mediums in the 21^st century. They are always evolving however, and before investing large amounts of time and energy in an application, it is always wise to consider the long-term (say, over 5 years) future of the content.

Modus Operandi

Our courses are delivered face-to-face, and although we are a postgraduate school we do ask that everyone attends the taught sessions. All students take 8 modules, 7 core plus one elective. There is then the individual dissertation. Detailed course materials can be found on the Moodle e-learning system for registered students, but public information about indicative content can be found on our course web pages, (LS, IS). Our courses can be studied full-time for 1 year, or part-time for 2 years.

Although some course materials are available on the e-learning system, this is not intended to suggest that attending the face-to-face sessions is unnessessary. Course participants are also encouraged to engage with out-of-hours activities and social media. A greater understanding of the concepts presented throughout the course will be gained from engagement with the course cohort, and wider professional networks.

As the Programmes Office may communicate official news to students via the UK postal system, do please ensure that we have a reliable home address.

Keeping up-to-date is hard, and for many of us the amount of reading and current awareness seems almost overwhelming. It does get a little better with time, as we learn to filter out the signal from the noise, but we live in a society where there is always more to pay attention to than we have time for. We all derive our own coping strategies, which invariably includes selection, and the ability to decide what to pay attention to. This ability is one of the key skills for contemporary society.

We will provide extensive, structured lists of resources during the academic year. We aim to provide students with a fair representation of the literature, but do remember that you do not have to read everything.

We work very hard on the content of, and interconnection between, our modules. However, new ideas, references, practices, organisations and methods arise all the time, and so material encountered during the formal course time will often be superceded fairly quickly. The #citylis teaching team members act as guides through what is undoubtedly a widespread, pervasive, and rapidly changing discipline, in the hope that the frameworks and concepts we communicate will be worthwhile, and that our students will be empowered with skills for life-long learning. Hold tight as we tell the stories, check, challenge and ask questions about everything.

Enjoy the show!

References:

Robinson L (2016). Between the deluge and the dark age; perspectives on data curation. Alexandria, 26(2), 73-76. DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1177/095574901666106

*From 17/18 DITA has been renamed Data, Information, Technologies and Applications

Documentation in the post-factual society; or what LIS did next (after Brexit)

Posted on July 17, 2016 by Dr Lyn Robinson

Photo by @lynrobinson cc-by

It has become something of a truism that LIS has rather lost its way. The importance of the information professional role is generally believed to have been diminished by the ready availability of digital information, particularly through Google, Wikipedia and social media, while news from the formal library sector is increasingly of closures and mergers. Not surprisingly, the underlying library/information discipline wonders what its purpose is, what it is educating for, and researching about. This is not new, but the concerns have now become more pressing.

One response, with which we identify, has been to suggest that we return to our turn-of-the-twentieth-century roots, and focus on documentation; the study of the varied forms and genres of documents which carry recorded information. This seems particularly apposite in light of the novel forms of complex digital documents now emerging, which traditional LIS is ill-equipped to handle, both in theory and in practice.

More broadly, we might see this movement framed within a wider set of social issues and problems, which we might categorise as those of the post-factual society.

The phrase “post-factual democracy”, now in wide circulation, seems to have risen to prominence in 2013, apropos of the ‘infostorm’ phenomenon, the multiple repetition of an idea on social media:

“Infostorms may be generating a new type of politics, the post-factual democracy. Facts are replaced by opportune narratives and the definition of a good story is one that has gone viral”

V.F. Hendricks, All these likes and upvotes are bad news for democracy

It has come into more frequent use in 2016, particularly in conjunction with Donald Trump’s candidacy for the US presidency, and the referendum decision for Britain to leave the European Union.

However, other variants are older. The term ‘post-factual age’ appears in 1999 (C Bybee, Can democracy survive in the post-factual age? ), and ‘post-factual era’ in 2007 (D. Sirota, Welcome to the post-factual era.)

The phrase “post-factual society” has contemporary popularity, used, for example, in an MTV report in July 2016, although “post fact society” was used in the title of a 2008 book.

While all these terms seem to have much the same import, “post-factual society” seems most appropriate for the perspective of LIS, with its emphasis on making accessible the (at least partly factual) records of society.

What this means was shown in sharp relief in the political campaign which culminated in the referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union in June 2016. It is generally agreed that the information available to the public during the campaign was accompanied, on both sides of the issue, by a great deal of misinformation (unintentionally false and/or misleading) and disinformation (deliberately false and/or misleading). Two widely publicised events threw light on the post-factual nature of the debate. One was the suggestion by Michael Gove, a leader of the Leave campaign that the public had had enough of experts. The second, the revelation that many British internet users searched for “what is the European Union” in the the days after the vote. Social media also played a major, and, in the views of many a malign, part in the campaign.

There are other, perhaps less dramatic, observations supporting the idea of the post-factual environment. One is the decline in fact-based news reporting, replaced by comment and supposition around a small amount of information (or misinformation, often) spread through the multiple reproduction of an initial report or press release, and lacking fact-checking or research in relevant information sources (K Schopflin and K Stoddard, The news librarian, CILIP Update June 2016, pp 28-30). Another is the reliance on social media for information of all kinds; while undoubtedly rapid, easy to consume, and able to be filtered according to taste, this works against the need for considered rational material, with an openness to views outside one’s filter bubble. Finally, there might be mentioned the inarguable move to a generally shallow, light or distant reading of materials of all kind, exemplified by a reliance on headlines, tweets, updates, snippets in internet news, and on abstracts for professional materials.

What might the response of LIS be to this complex of issues and problems? The problem is certainly not one of a lack of information; arguably the reverse. The response of the library community in particular over the past decade to information overload has been the enthusiastic advocacy of information literacy, with a focus on the selection of ‘good’ sources, and the evaluation of information. While this is no doubt of value, particularly in the educational settings where it is most strongly espoused, it seems too limited an approach to make much headway in a wider post-factual context.

We have argued that LIS should take as a major task, indeed perhaps as its main role, the promotion of understanding, as a replacement for the previous task of the provision of information. Understanding is, ironically enough, a poorly understood concept, and there is scholarly work to be done in capturing exactly what it means, from a documentation perspective, and hence how it may best be promoted. However, it seems likely that it will certainly involve two aspects. First is the development of information fluency: the conceptual grasp of the world of information, in its new digital environment with its new forms of document. Second is the complementary development of digital literacy; the set of skills necessary to navigate, to access and contribute to, the new information environment. These need to be studied and taught within LIS academic departments, and then promulgated through society generally by practitioners. This is certainly not a matter of attempting to go back to some golden age of universal deep reading of the kind of documents familiar in the pre-Internet age; the world has moved on from that, and will not go back. Rather, it is an attempt to help society to regain the fluent and effective dealing with information which has, to a significant extent, been lost in these post-factual days.

But together with these conceptual and practical concerns should go a specific ethical, and arguably political, commitment to oppose and to counteract the post-factual tendency and its proponents. The latter include much of the media, and some highly placed political figures, as well as the section of the population which prefers not to have to engage in rational fact-based debate.

It may reasonably be said that these are not wholly new tasks or perspectives for LIS; and indeed one may find analogies going back to the origins of the public library movement in the nineteenth century, if not before. But the social transformations which we are now seeing lend a new urgency. The transformation of LIS into a subject based around the principles of documentation, and with the primary aim of promoting rational understanding in society, is a necessary response.

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Note: The nature of LIS as a discipline and its relevance to practice is one of my research interests, and I often write and speak about the content and boundaries of the subject, and the design of LIS curricula.

Here are some of my previous posts around this topic:

30/03/16 Waving not Drowning

10/05/15 Don’t go to Library School, you won’t learn anything useful

08/03/2015 Time for the blue whale

17/11/2014 21^st Centruy Library & Information Science

18/03/2014 My name is Lynxi, I am an academic

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If you are interested in studying for your masters in LIS, I give regular presentations on the discipline, careers and our course content at our #citylis open evenings, which are held in November, April and June at City University London as part of their postgraduate open evenings. Check the website for the next date – free but you need to register.

Waving Not Drowning

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Dr Lyn Robinson

lyn's tweet feed from 29/03/16 Unusually, libraries have been making the news this week. The publicity surrounding the BBC’s investigation into public library closures has generated much controversy about the – admittedly not new – phenomenon of the alleged decline of libraries and librarians.

Two responses come naturally to a provider of library/information education, concerned at the implication that we are educating students for a terminally declining profession. We can rebuke the sloppy journalism that writes of the decline of ‘libraries’ and ‘librarians’, when what is meant is the much more limited, though still important, context of the public library service in the UK. We can deplore the shallow voices that proclaim, as they have been doing for nearly two decades now, that we don’t need libraries any more, now that we have Google/Wikipedia/smartphones.

This though, isn’t really enough. Complain though we might about the limitations of reporting, and the ignorance of some commentators, we cannot ignore the dramatically changing library/information landscape, and we need to be continually reconsidering what we offer to meet changing demands. Not that we haven’t already been doing so; a post I wrote almost a year ago [Time for the Blue Whale] outlined our thinking of that time about the way library/information education needed to adapt. But, in view of the current bruhaha, it’s worth setting out how #citylis sees itself adapting to meet the challenges.

The five points here are really an elaboration of the ideas in my earlier post, not a replacement for them.

Wide horizons

We support public libraries, of course we do, and we object strongly to many of the more stupid attitudes being expressed at the moment. We cover public library issues on our courses, and will continue to do so. But only a minority of students will ever be professionally active in the public library sector. Along with many others commenting on the current controversy, we remind ourselves that the library/information sector is much bigger than this one aspect. Even if all public libraries in the country went out of business, which is unthinkable, there would still be a vibrant library profession, and a need for library education.

Wider horizons

As I pointed out in my earlier post, and as many others have reiterated, library/information skills are relevant, indeed increasingly relevant, way beyond the wider bounds of any conception of the library/information sector. Our subject is the whole communication chain of information recorded in documents. We will continue to emphasise these wider implications in our courses; both to cater for the increasing proportion of our students who do not see themselves as library/information professionals, and to help those who do prepare to support this wider application of our perspectives and skills.

We’ve been here before, but it’s different now

While it is idiotic to say that library are obsolescent because of Google and smartphones, we cannot, and do not, ignore the changes brought about by technology. We are unashamedly digital, and want all of our students to leave with a good appreciation of the possibilities of technology. For those who want it, we will be offering more opportunities for gaining skills in metadata, coding, data analysis, social media, and the like. But this has to be balanced by a continued interest in the historical core, and development of our subject; if we don’t know where we’ve come from, we can’t really understand where we are, still less where we’re going. New technologies and resources often do not bring new issues and behaviours; just a new variant on what’s gone before.

Making friends

Another thing that we have said before, but which is very relevant in thinking how library/information education can flourish in difficult times, is that we are a meta-discipline. Our concern is information and documents, but that gives us an overlap with several other disciplines. It is well-known that LIS has no unique place within the academic landscape, shown by the varied range of faculties in which the subject is placed in different universities. In our case, we overlap City University’s Schools of Technology and of Arts/Social Sciences. This could be seen a weakness, but we intend to turn it into a strength in our course provision, by involving the whole range of information interests, from performance art to robots, and from philosophy to cult media fans. Information is central to many conversations and domains.

Theory and practice

Something else we have emphasised in the past, but which will stand statement, is that we try to strike a balance between theory and practice in LIS education. If we were focused just on training our students for immediate practice, then we would rightly be concerned about the ‘decline of a profession’ headlines that we are now seeing (inaccurate though they may be). But we don’t do that. On the contrary, we focus very firmly on the body of theory, concepts and principles that will allow our students to thrive in the future information environment, however it develops and changes. That doesn’t mean that we neglect skills; on the contrary we are putting more emphasis on directly linking conceptual and skills-based materials, partly though curriculum changes and partly through addition of more optional workshops, seminars, etc.

So, it would be tempting to simply rail against those who wrongly report that all libraries are in decline, and that library/information professionals are no longer needed. But we prefer to acknowledge that, wrong-headed as many of their pronouncements are, there is a sea-change in the sector taking place. #citylis will change, and is changing, to meet the need for graduates with a thorough understanding of the world of information, and an ability to impact it. And the need for those people is increasing, not declining.