Renewing Professional Librarianship: A Fundamental Rethinking (Beta Phi Mu Monograph)

Bill Crowley

ISBN 10: 1591585546 / ISBN 13: 9781591585541

Published by Libraries Unlimited 2008-03-30, 2008

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 6666-IUK-9781591585541

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Renewing Professional Librarianship: A Fundamental Rethinking (Beta Phi Mu Monograph)
• Publisher: Libraries Unlimited 2008-03-30
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1591585546
• ISBN 13: 9781591585541
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Can professional librarianship exist, let alone thrive, in the 21st century? Does accreditation protect the profession, or reduce it to a minor component of information science? The prognosis is not good, claims cultural pragmatist Bill Crowley, with worse to follow unless library studies and information studies are viewed as separate cognate areas. While an information-centric definition may be appropriate for corporate information specialists, he notes that academic, public, and school librarians are already suffering the effects of devaluation. The remedy is to embrace a concept called lifecycle librarianship, the ability to meet crucial public needs from the lapsit to the nursing home, by honing the library's time honored role as a vital resource for reading and lifelong learning; and he concludes with a series of recommendations for library associations, library and information education educators, and practitioners and a challenge for the reader to do something with them!

About the Author

Bill Crowley, Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois.