Library Science in Broader Contests - Education and Profession

Jiøí Cejpek

Introductory Note

This is an extension of my recently published article "Library Science in Broader Contexts" [1] , in which the main ideas were, briefly, as follows: Libraries as intermediaries of knowledge, experience, stories and experiences recorded in signs (from now on referred to as sign records) must emerge from their partial isolation and find a new place in the sun. The volume of recorded information as a consequence of an unprecedented development of information technology, especially in the second half of the 20th century, has increased extraordinarily. In addition to traditional documents, new types of media are continually coming into being in rapid sequence, and are continuously being perfected. Will the library, an institution which has accompanied humans for thousands of years, survive in competition with radio and television (where a transition into interactive media is expected soon), the invasion of computers and their networks, such as the Internet, in the workplace and in the household? In the paper mentioned, I endeavoured to enumerate the conditions under which the library as an institution could survive in the next century, although in a considerably altered format. Incidentally, these changes are already occurring before our very eyes. We may pose the question about whether they are sufficient in degree and speed, and in the right direction. To this we can only respond by viewing libraries in the context of changing information communication processes in the globalizing society. In the aforementioned article, I concentrated mainly on the defence of the fact that the library science theory must be interpreted as a part of a broader scientific whole called the information science. In this presentation I will focus on school education, extra-curricular education and the profession of librarians and information workers.

Learning Society or Information Society?

In spite of an extraordinary passion for predicting the future developments of society, we are continually moving over thin ice whenever such a prediction, although by the so-called scientific methods, is attempted. Over the decades, I have collected all kinds of prognoses for the next 10, 20 or more years. When these periods had elapsed, I would compare them to what had actually come to be. Those comparisons often sounded grotesque. Oftentimes predictions come true, but the phenomenon in question proved insignificant for the society. Great mistakes were made, and phenomena and situations occurred that the modern-day prophets had not in the least expected. In spite of that, I still very much value specialists such as Meadows and Randers [2], and reports by the UNESCO International Commission on "Education for the 21st Century" [3], to which I will repeatedly return in my presentation. Such visions are very necessary. They are a great inspirational force. Their implementation, however, depends on many factors difficult to foresee, and is therefore very uncertain.

In 1996 in Berlin at the ISI '96 international symposium, I already expressed my doubts about the correctness of what today has become a world-wide term, "information society" [4]. The basic misunderstanding lies in the fact that even specialists often interchange two concepts which need to be very carefully differentiated from one another: potential, i.e. information recoded in signs as psycho-physiological phenomena and the process occurring in our mind through the mediation of our senses. It is only that process may become the entry point to our understanding, thinking, action and behaviour. But what of that "offer" (which our interactions with the environment provide us with) moves into our endoceptor and transforms into knowledge is determined by our typical human characteristics and abilities such as motivation, the will to know, the capability to learn, and, subsequently, by the ability to make use of the findings in the cultivation of one's own standpoint, in the behaviour, etc. Apart from this individual level, there is also, naturally, the social level. Society creates various conditions for an individual to apply these and other individual characteristics to a various degree.

So on the one hand, there is the extraordinarily rapid growth in the volume of recorded information, often of course "contaminated" by the waste of irrational notions and opinions (for example on the Internet); and on the other hand, the ever so slow evolution of the human brain, with its limited capacity and the so far little known human mind. Between these two, there is the rapid development of information technology and technologies that are offering increasingly simplified access to this growing volume of sign records of information.

In our considerations this is only one of many opposites that are mentioned as the main contradictions of the 21st century, but the most important one. Many years ago we named it the social information problem. It is also a fundamental problem of school and extra-curricular education, which library science participates in. The questions is, what of the growing volume of sign records of information should it be made into subject matter, and in what format, to be taught at various types of schools and various extra-curricular forms of education so that future generations were more educated and, at the same time, were not overwhelmed by an excessive amount of factual information.

Given our persistent need to name the contemporary society from the viewpoint of our visions, then it seems to me that it would be more suitable to label it not as the information society, but as the learning society, and, from the perspective of individuals, the life-long learning society. For this purpose it is surely very important to have suitable and easily accessible necessary information, including sign records of information. But the key to attaining this type of society is within each individual who to a significant extent is dependent on the state of society in which he lives, on the degree of freedom to gather information from available sources, and the extent of openness of that society, the quality of its democracy, etc.

The Four Pillars of Education for the 21st Century

In 1993 at the UNESCO, an international commission "Education for the 21st Century" came about, which was entrusted to work out recommendations to help adjust the educational system to the basic requirements of global society of the 21st century. The chair of the commission was the former president of the European Commission, renowned French and European politician Jacques Delors. The results of the commission meetings were summarised in a report which was has been translated into Czech. This has become the foundation for discussions on the draft of the Czech National Education Development Programme. In the report, education is understood in the broadest of terms: from pre-school to university. Further education is defined as education intended for all age groups, all career fields and all social strata. That may be education that takes place in schools and other educational facilities, as well as outside of them. Finally, the concept of education also encompasses personal improvement by getting information from the most varied of sources and its conversion into knowledge. From the Czech terminology perspective, they are processes including both education and upbringing, a complete and complex life-long formation of personality for which the authors of the report often use the term "learning".

If this type of education is to be successful, according to Delors' report, it has to be based on four basic types of learning which, in a sense, become the pillars of development in every individual's life.

1. Learning to know.
2. Learning to act.
3. Learning to live together.
4. Learning to be.

Learning to know means learning to learn; in the broader sense again, learning from the most varied of sources. This presupposes not only learning to evaluate the broadening array of sources for the development of one's personality, but also to master skills, to learn to concentrate, to remember and to think creatively. One must learn to draw from the sources of knowledge in such a way so that each individual can attain a certain balance between general knowledge and specialisation, and between knowledge gained through direct experience and information gained through the mass media. At the same time to avoid lack of knowledge, where the mind does not receive enough stimuli, but also an overabundance which could fog one's thinking.

As a rule, people do not usually learn about the world around themselves simply for the sake of learning as such, but in order to be able to act, do and behave, which enables them to move in the most diverse social environments, from the domestic to that in the most varied social institutions, and, above all, in their professions which they purposely prepared for with their education. Learning to live together demands, as a significant function of education, to learn from the earliest age to understand that people are on the one hand very diverse - various temperaments, nationalities and races; and on the other hand, that they are similar in their fundamental nature and mutually dependent on one another. Intensive global education in this "shrinking world" is an especially significant component of education. It is education towards the attainment of tolerance and the ability to empathize [5].

The last pillar of education - learning to be - is summarising in character. Education ought to lead to the multi-faceted all-round development of each individual. People (probably in contrast to other creatures) are capable of full self-realisation. All-round development of an individual means mastering the ability to act autonomously, on the basis of one's own judgement and according to one's own sense of responsibility, not neglecting any of the standpoints of one's personal repertoire: memory, thought, a sense of beauty, physical properties, communication abilities, etc. Learning to be also involves a certain understanding of how to act in defence of the dehumanisation resulting from the penetration of technical means and of technology into the social organism (even though on the other hand we must learn to live with them), in defence of various ideologies, etc. [6]

The four pillars of education for the 21st century have at least three meanings for us:

1. They provide each of us with a kind of orientation; they show us where to direct our own life-long education.
2. They are the supporting points for directing our activities of any institution or workplace mediating sign records of information, especially those institutions which are public in nature, such as libraries open to the public; they provide guidelines especially for their acquisition policy.
3. As solid orientation points for education for the 21st century, they act as pillars not only for the content and structure for study programmes in the field of information studies and library science, but to a bigger or smaller extent for the content and structure of the individual subjects in these programmes, whether in lecture form, seminars or in various forms of school or extracurricular education.

University Education for the 21st Century

The principles of education for the 21st century in the broadest sense, as I have described with the help of the Four Pillars from Delors' paper, are conceivably valid even at the level of tertiary and university education.

On the basis of my own experience and with the support of the opinions of several of my colleagues (for example Professor. C. Höschl, Professor V. Cepl, and Professor A. Lass), the Magna Charta of European Universities (1988) and those parts of Delors' paper which concern university studies, I will attempt to concisely characterise the fundamental tendencies in this area of education. To the individual points I will then add summarising points about the contemporary state and the prospects for further development in the field of information studies and library science in the Czech Republic.

1. The autonomy and academic freedom of universities allow for open discussion about fundamental academic and ethical issues, in that way taking over a considerable portion of responsibilities for the further development of society.
2. University teaching is being enhanced by the results of creative research which is initiated by the needs of the society.
3. Universities fulfil two seemingly opposing social functions: preparing students for a career (this is especially true of bachelor's level studies); and searching for ways how to give sense and purpose to life through education, how to fulfil the natural human desire for knowledge (especially at the master's level and in post-graduate types of study).
4. The basic function of universities is evident in the word university itself. While the rapidly growing volume of human knowledge leads in its consequences inevitably to a division of labour and towards more and more narrow specialisations, it is the function of universities to recreate a natural whole out of those fragments. This means to integrate individual pieces of knowledge or, rather to reintegrate them, to promote a holistic view of the world, to understand human culture in the broadest sense, etc. The point is for universities not to advocate teaching in a great number of more or less isolated subjects, but in the broadest context possible which still make sense in the respective disciplines. This incidentally relates to information retention in the memory. With wit, C. Höschl calls such relationships "the facilitators of remembrance".
5. Universities as the seats of learning and study are open to everyone who yearns for education and has the predisposition and willpower to educate oneself, throughout an entire lifetime.
6. Universities are a special form of partnership between teacher and students (collegia). The operation of universities and their individual components, from the most basic organizational units such as laboratories, departments and institutes, to faculties and right up to the highest executive bodies of the university, detest autocratic and authoritarian methods and means; instead they require democratic discussion, above all. The concept of university teaching is advocated as services to students, including, of course, their stringent control.
7. Often we point to the differences, simply said, between university teaching in the United States and that in Europe, and even more emphatically in this country [7] where these differences are even more noticeable. This again is a simplification: in Europe, especially since the publication of the Encyclopédie in France, there has been an emphasis on knowledge; in the United States skills in practice are favoured - for example, attitude and decision-making abilities in various circumstances. With the rapid growth of sign records of information, this problem is increasingly more pressing in Europe. It seems that its resolution is somewhere in the middle. The movement of European universities in this direction is evident.
8. In order to fulfil their functions, universities cross geographical and political borders, thereby taking on an international character. They are becoming proof of the urgent need for diverse cultures to mutually learn about and influence each other.

Closing Thoughts

In the fifty year history of the Information Studies and Library Science Institute [8], so far the largest and most important university workplace in the field, there have not only been continuous smaller changes, but also an unsuccessful attempt at reforming the study program. One successful reform did come about. I define a reform of the study programme as its fundamental change, while changes in its parts are small adjustments.

The first basic reform at what was then the Department of Scientific Information was being prepared in the atmosphere of gradual thawing during the second half of the 1960's within the framework of a government assignment, and I was designated as the person responsible for it. The reform aspired not only to make the best of the thawing climate for promoting certain liberalisations in the study programs, but it also to accommodate the expected introduction of new information technologies. How wide and deep was the base of that research assignment is evidenced not only by the fact that a very wide-ranging team of specialists took part in it, but also that the new study programmes were to be based on the detailed "profession descriptions". In October 1973, a period of very intense normalisation, the final approval proceedings of this government assignment were taking place at what was then the Federal Ministry of Technology and Investment Development. Although the final report was thoroughly commended, it ended up being thrown out. The introduction of new technology did not materialise. The implementation of the reform proposal did not take place. On the contrary, the study programmes were burdened by heavy normalisation measures.

The second fundamental study programme reform was more successful. The preparatory work began already in December 1989, when a commission for the change of curriculum programs was established. The purpose of the reform was to remove ideology from teaching, to create preconditions for relaxing what until that time were very rigid study structures, and to open up more to the Faculty of Arts, other faculties and universities, and to other similar institutions abroad. It was also a question of adapting to new technology, whose massive penetration into what was Czechoslovakia at the time was justifiably expected. Commission members along with many external colleagues prepared a study programme over the course of four months, which made it possible to gradually start implementing them into the curriculum starting from the winter term of 1990-91.

Over the course of the next ten years, the study programmes at the Prague Institute as well as at the newly founded (1993) department of library science at the Institute of Czech Studies Institute and Library Science of the Faculty of Arts and Natural Sciences of Silesian University were adapting to the changing needs of society, especially in terms of the necessity to introduce new information technologies. The system of compulsory elective lectures and seminars, optional specialisations (information studies, library science, library studies), and many other measures created an environment conducive for the implementing these changes. The content and structure changes to the study programmes can be traced down approximately every two years in modified study programs and curricula, which are nowadays available in electronic form to students as well as the trade.

The development of education in the field of information studies and library science has until now been more often assessed by the number of teachers, the number of applicants, students and graduates of individual levels of study (bachelor's , master's, and doctorate), publicising lists of annotated notes of defended diploma and other university works, publishing the questions for the final state exams, etc. This, along with occasional evaluations of the latest development of the field of study in trade journals, has unquestionably painted a certain picture about the results attained. From 1991 to 1994, the Prague Institute made its year-end reports available to the public. From these public documents, the development of the field in the last ten years seems to be very favourable and well founded conceptually.

I suppose that today such references are not enough. The ideas of the Charter of European Universities, Delors' report, and other similar documents, and also the experiences with the developing tendencies of the leading universities of the democratic parts of the world urge us to more profound analysis and subsequently to a broadly-based discussion of specialists about the state of information studies and library science. It will be necessary to carefully consider the attaining of the academic degrees of teachers in the field (which, in this field, I consider to be the most urgent problem), above their personal, specialised and pedagogical qualities; it will be necessary to evaluate the relationships between the teachers and students. One thing we lack today is a feedback, that is to say, an anonymous evaluation of the quality of teaching. It was done in the first half of the 1990's, and is being practised at many western universities. The questions about attaining academic degrees and the quality teaching are related to the state of scientific research activities in both institutions. This activity would be demanded especially in those sectors of information science that bear some relation to sign records of knowledge (potential information) and information as psycho-physiological phenomenon and process. Information science cannot be perceived simply as some kind of "ornament" which in and of itself makes the field more scientific, adds the appropriate lustre, and helps in promoting the needs of the field in higher-level faculty and university bodies. It should be taken as an integrating force allowing for the better understanding of the broader relationships, the essence and the meaning of the discipline, as well as the position of the institutions that emerge, develop and also disappear in it. These are only a few proposals that ought to become subjects for analysis and discussion. The changes that may result from this would naturally concern not only the institutes in Prague and Opava, but also the newly established workplaces of our study field at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno and at the Faculty of Humanities at the Western Bohemia University in Pilsen. Our move towards the European Union, to European structures, and to the democratic part of the globalizing world, while simultaneously making the most of our good traditions in education, demand it of us. This is a very topical theme. At university, information studies and library science, especially at the master's and doctorate levels, are concerned with something greater: to understand the current changing world, especially those of its components that relate to information, communication, and human thought.

Literature and Notes

[1] Cejpek, J. Library Science in Broader Contexts. The National Library: literary review 1999, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. - The latest general outlook on the library science profession in the CR is then given by Vlasák, R. The Education of Librarians in Bohemia. Ètenáø. 1998, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 242-247.
[2] Meadows, D.H. ; Meadows, D.L. ; Randers, J. Stepping Over In Between: The Confrontation of Global Collapse With the Idea of a Sustainable Future. 1st ed. Prague : Argo, 1995. p. 319.
[3] Learning is a Hidden Treasure. A Report by the UNESCO International Commission "Education for the 21st Century". 1st ed. Prague: Institute of School Research and Development, 1997. p.125.
[4] Cejpek, J. Informationsgesellschaft oder eine andere Gesellschaft? In: Knowledge Management und Kommunikationssysteme. Workflow, Management, Multimedia, Knowledge, Transfer. Proceedings des 6. Internationalen Symposium für Informationswissenschaft ISI ´98. Prag 3.-7. November, 1998, s. 481-486.
[5] Pike, G. ; Selby, D. Global Upbringing. 1st ed. Prague: Grada, 1994. p. 332. [6] For a better understanding of the principle of "learning to be" see Faure, E. et al. Learning to be. The World of Education Today and Tomorrow. 1st ed. Paris: UNESCO, 1972. - Fromm, E. To Have or to Be? 1st ed. Prague: Our Armed Forces, 1992. p. 170.
[7] See, e.g., the interview with Professor Andrew Lass about university teaching in this country and in the USA. Universitas, 1999, no. 1, pp. 23-33.
[8] The beginnings of university education for librarians on the territory of today's Czech Republic can be traced back to the year 1927 when Z.V. Tobolka established a two-year library science course at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague for the education of librarians of research and administrative libraries.