Education for Digital Librarians: Some European Observations

Abstract

Purpose – Changes in the environment – political, economic, social, educational and technological – have demanded changes in many areas of work, most particularly in the roles and tasks of those involved in the preservation and transmission of cultural heritage, and interpersonal information intervention. Sending, storing and receiving digital information are commonplace activities, and now formally constructed digital libraries constitute an important component of this virtual information environment. Similar to traditional physical libraries, digital libraries are constructed for particular purposes, to serve particular clienteles or to collect and provide access to selected information resources (whether text documents or artefacts). Information intermediaries – or digital librarians – in this transformed information environment must learn new skills, play different roles and possess a new suite of competencies.

Design, methodology and approach – Myburgh and Tammaro have, for several years, examined the new knowledge, skills and competencies that are now demanded, in order to design and test a curriculum for digital librarians which has found expression in the Erasmus Mundus Master's in Digital Library Learning (DILL), now in its sixth year.

Findings – The chief objective of the Digital library program is to prepare information intermediaries for effective contribution to their particular communities and societies, in order to assist present and future generations of digital natives to negotiate the digital information environment effectively. This includes, for example, the necessity for digital librarians to be able to teach cultural competency, critical information literacies and knowledge value mapping, as well as understanding the new standards and formats that are still being developed in order to capture, store, describe, locate and preserve digital materials.

Research limitations – In this chapter, we propose describing the work we have done thus far, with special reference to the development of a model of the role of the digital librarian, including competencies, skills, knowledge base and praxis.

Social implications – Amongst the various issues that have arisen and demanded consideration and investigation are the importance of a multidisciplinarity dimension in the education of digital librarians, as information work is orthogonal to other disciplinary and cultural categorisations; that a gradual convergence or confluence is being identified between various cultural institutions which include libraries, archives and museums; the new modes of learning and teaching, with particular regard to knowledge translation and the learner-generated environment or context; and possibly even a reconsideration of the role of the information professional and new service models for their praxis.

Originality/value – The chapter tries to evidence the present debate about digital librarianship in Europe.

Citation

Myburgh, S. and Tammaro, A.M. (2012), "Education for Digital Librarians: Some European Observations", Spink, A. and Heinström, J. (Ed.) Library and Information Science Trends and Research: Europe (Library and Information Science, Vol. 6), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 217-245. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1876-0562(2012)0000006013