Technology and Instruction

Information technologies have changed the way people search for information inside and outside the library environment. As a result, one of the core functions of librarians—instruction—has changed. Initially, library instruction, also known as bibliographic instruction, focused on teaching patrons how to find library resources. Databases and the Internet with keyword searching abilities shifted the focus of library instruction away from library resources to search techniques that are applicable in a variety of information settings. Web 2.0 technologies have further impacted information literacy instruction as they have helped make the searching for, use of, and creation of information nearly seamless. These technologies have changed user expectations and librarians have adjusted the way they provide instruction services to patrons. This chapter examines the impact of new technologies on how librarians frame their relationship with patrons, specifically students and faculty in the academic library context. Librarians use new technologies to compliment their existing instruction sessions and as a tool to frame themselves as information experts.

More than Just Books

This chapter explores popular images of librarians. Such images provide librarians with insight into how the general public understands their work. But by focusing on how librarians themselves react to these images, deeper insight is gained into how librarians understand their professional identity. When librarians engage with popular representations of their profession, they bring different understandings and meaning to the image than the general public. This understanding is the product of the professional education and their experiences as a profession. As they interact with the representation, they express and make sense of their professional identities. This chapter focuses on three images of the profession: Bunny Watson from Desk Set, Rupert Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Vox NY-114 from The Time Machine. Librarians have generally reacted very positively to these images. Bunny is seen as stereotype-shattering, Giles is understood to portray librarians as heroes, and Vox is celebrated for being the compendium of all human knowledge. The popular stereotype of librarians rarely includes them interacting with technology, and the professional literature often focuses on how inaccurate this portrayal is. Librarians clearly understand themselves to have a closer relationship with technology than the stereotype allows.

Technology, Gender, and Professional Identity

On its surface, technology does not appear to be a topic that is gendered. Both men and women use technology, and it must, therefore, be shaped by those who use it. However, both technology and gender are dependent on cultural, social, and historical contexts. These contexts shape how technologies are designed and used and how technologies and gender is understood. Currently, information technologies are associated with masculinity. In a similar manner, librarianship is gendered. Not only is the demographic makeup of the profession female-intensive, with approximately 80% of all LIS professionals being women, but some have argued that its core professional values, specifically access to information and service, are feminine in nature – as are its traditional activities, specifically cataloguing and children’s librarianship. This chapter closely examines a feminist critique of librarianship by Harris (1992) that argues librarians are embracing technology in an effort to improve the perception of librarianship and make it more masculine. The status of male librarians is examined in light of Harris’s argument, alongside an examination of Library 2.0 and how technology is used as part of its service philosophy. This chapter argues that the relationship between gender and technology is more complex than Harris argues.

Library and Information Studies Education, Technology, and Professional Identity

Librarians start to form their professional identities during their Master’s of Library and Information Science/Studies programs. With this in mind, this chapter explores how technology is taught in Library and Information Studies (LIS) programs by examining the core course offerings at 51 of the 57 American Library Association’s accredited programs. Technology-focused courses are the sixth most commonly offered core courses by LIS programs, and an examination of their content using course descriptions and available syllabi indicated that the content taught in these courses matched with expectations as described in competency standards from professional organizations. This indicated that LIS programs are teaching an understanding of technology that agrees with how practising librarians understand technology. The recent iSchool movement has led some professional librarians to claim that LIS programs are no longer offering an education that is relevant for today’s information world. This chapter finds that this claim is false and that the LIS education offered by both iSchools and non-iSchools appears to meet professional expectations for technology education. What the iSchool movement offers LIS education, however, is an expanded understanding of how information users interact with technology in all information settings, not just the library. This provides librarians with a broader understanding of patrons’ information needs. Finally, there is a brief examination of international LIS education, with specific attention to how it is emerging in developing countries.

Library Automation

This chapter examines the development of two technologies related to library automation, Machine Readable Cataloguing (MARC) and Online Public Access Catalogues (OPACs), alongside an examination of how librarians reacted to library automation more generally. The technologies of library automation brought with them the promise of greater work efficiencies and cost savings, but also were seen as threatening core library services, specifically cataloguing and cataloguers. In the 1960s and 1970s, technology was seen as a tool to help free up librarians from the more clerical aspects of their day-to-day work lives so that they could develop more active relationships with their patrons and communities to better understand and meet their information needs. By the 1980s, however, there was a shift to understanding technology as necessary to the survival of libraries and the jobs of librarians.

Technology, Profession, Identity

This chapter provides a brief introduction to the primary concepts of the book: technology, profession, and identity. Understanding these concepts will provide insight into how the central question of the book will be addressed: What impact does a constant contact with technology have on the professional identities of librarians? Information technology has changed the way librarians perform their work and the expectations of library users. The role technology plays in the work lives of librarians is complex, but the impact it has had on their professional identity is even more so. First, the historical impact of technology on society is examined to highlight that many technologies we encounter on a daily basis are often not even considered technology in today’s technology-rich world. This is followed by examinations of the concepts of profession and identity. Together, these definitions provide the working definition of professional identity that will guide the remainder of the book. Professional identity is a description of the self within the professional practices and discourses of librarianship. By drawing attention to the role that technology plays in the professional lives of librarians, this book provides insights into how librarians interact with their patrons, policy makers, and society in general.

How Librarians Are Using the Internet

This chapter examines the variety of ways librarians are using the Internet from its influence on the provision of new services to how librarians use the Internet to communicate with each other. A brief overview of Google and Google Scholar and their impact on library services alongside the Library 2.0 service ethic is explored with specific attention to its development and how it connects to previous understandings of library service provision. This is followed by an examination of how Web 2.0 technologies are used by librarians to offer services. There appears to be a disconnect between the rhetoric of technology use in libraries and the actual use of these technologies by librarians in their work lives. This disconnect highlights the previously identified relationship librarians have with technology – a combination of excitement and caution. Following this, a closer examination of three specific Internet technologies, blogs, Twitter, and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), is done. How librarians use these two technologies provides insight into the central place that technology has in the lives of modern librarians.

Ethics in the Age of Technological Change and its Impact on the Professional Identity of Librarians

Professional ethics and core values provide professionals with guidance for their actions by helping professionals determine what constitutes right and wrong professional action. Because they are written for and by librarians, these documents offer one articulation of librarians’ professional identities. This chapter examines the core values of librarianship with an eye to how they articulate the relationship librarians have with technology. These documents illustrate that librarians understand technology to be a tool that is used to meet the information needs of users. The Social Construction Of Technology (SCOT) is discussed as an alternative approach to the understanding of technology by LIS professionals. SCOT examines the social processes that are behind the development of technologies and highlights how different social groups contribute to the social meaning and even use of technology. SCOT provides an expanded view of ethics that encourages librarians to not only consider their professional ethics when implementing a new technology but also the intentions of the technology’s developers, its various users, and their local communities. To illustrate the potential of SCOT for librarians, this chapter explores an examination of how librarians have managed the ethical challenges that Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has brought to library services, followed by an examination of how librarians interpret their ethical role as service providers.

Cybrarians at Last?

This examines the three main themes throughout the book: us versus them, technology as tool, and library as place. Us versus them highlights the relationships that librarians have with their various user communities and even with other librarians. Librarians use technology to position themselves as technology experts, which places users in a subordinate position. Amongst themselves, librarians use technology to distinguish between those who are concerned with patrons’ needs and open-minded about the best way to address them and those who are closed-minded and anti-technology. Additionally, librarians use technology to distinguish themselves from LIS faculty members by claiming that faculty members are too distanced from the actual uses of technology in the profession. Technology as tool is perhaps the most dominant theme throughout the book. By understanding technology as just a tool, librarians end up defining themselves by how they use technology, thus limiting not only their use of it, but also placing inadvertent limits on how it can be used within the library itself to provide services. Lastly, technology has changed how librarians understand the library as place. The library, in the face of technological change, has become a place that needs protecting. Librarians, as a result, have become the protectors of the library as place. They use technology in a controlled way to manage this.

The Role of Technology in the Historical Development of Libraries Pre-Automation

This chapter examines the role of five different types of technology that have impacted libraries pre-automation: card catalogue, the telegraph and telephone, the phonograph and other audio visual technologies, microfilm, and punched cards. These technologies were used to varying degrees by librarians to improve organizational efficiencies and provide services to patrons. Only one of these technologies is specific to libraries – the card catalogue. Its development is an important indicator for understanding what it was past librarians valued. In a similar manner, how the remaining technologies were incorporated, or not incorporated as the case may be, into library services provides insight into what librarians felt was most important in providing services to patrons.