Special Library Education and Continuing Education in Canada

THEBUSINESS OF PROVIDING and managing information in today’s changing economy is in a state of constant flux. This is as true for special librarians in Canada as it is for those in the United States. This article will take a comprehensive look at special library education and continuing education within the accredited library school programs in Canada. The state of special library education in light of changes in the profession and in the marketplace will be assessed. What does an employer expect from a newly graduated special librarian? How should special librarians continue to expand their capabilities and skills to include the broad education and training needs required in most information systems and services today? Finally, the article will conclude with some speculation on educational preparation for careers in special libraries for the future. INTRODUCTION To discuss education for special librarianship in Canada is no easy task, since there is no standard throughout the nation, and, like many things in this country, it varies from province to province, city to city, school to school, association to association. As in the United States, special libraries have been an important aspect of the field of librarianship for about a hundred years, and courses have been geared to the special librarian for nearly as long, whether by the library associations or by the schools of librarianship. Judy Macfarlane, Information Resources KPMG Peat Marwick Thorne, 2000 McGill College Avenue, Suite 1900, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 3H8 Miriam Tees, 24 Holton Avenue, Westmount, Quebec, Canada H3Y 2E8 LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 42, No. 2, Fall 1993, pp. 304-18 @ 1993 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois MACFARLANE 8c TEEWSPECIAL LIBRARY EDUCATION IN CANADA 305 For many years, courses called “Special Libraries” were part and parcel of the curricula of the two original library schools (McGill University and University of Toronto) and, when new schools were formed, they followed suit. These were usually elective courses, often taught by practitioners who worked as special librarians themselves. Students were usually required to choose one or more “type of library” course: public, college, university, children’s, special, or a variant of these. There was, of course, no guarantee that if a student took the course in special librarianship he or she would actually work in a special library. Then, as now, most organizations employing special librarians are looking simply for someone with a library or information science degree, if in fact they know enough to employ a librarian with professional education at all. A course in “special libraries” may be the perfect preparation for work in a special library, but the graduate may well find himself or herself in another type of library while the person working in the special library may never have taken such a course. Nonetheless, education for special librarianship is still available in one way or another in all the schools in Canada. There are at present seven accredited schools of librarianship and a number of institutions which give training for library technicians. We shall deal here only with the former, since the latter rarely cover special librarianship in any specific way. The seven accredited schools are: School of Library and Information Studies at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec; Ecole de bibliotheconomie et des sciences de l’information, Universite de Montreal, Montreal, Quebec; Faculty of Library and Information Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario; School of Library and Information Science, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario; School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta; and School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia (see Appendix A for information about these school and Appendix B for course content of the Canadian special library courses). Each of these schools has different emphases, different strengths, and a different approach to education for librarianship. With the exception of the University of Western Ontario, which has a three-semester program, all the Canadian schools have twoyear programs. This means that students spend the first year learning basics of librarianship, and there is usually a required core which probably includes cataloging, classification, bibliography, reference, 306 LIBRARY TRENDVFALL 1993 library automation in its various aspects, collection development, management, or some variation of these. The content of a course in special librarianship would depend on how much the students would already know in any one area and where emphasis would be needed. In one school, for example, time is spent discussing appropriate databases and how to evaluate and choose them. In another, such a topic is not touched upon. COURSES Of the seven schools of library and information studieslscience in Canada, six have specific courses in special librarianship, and the seventh, Dalhousie, provides a variety of options for students who wish to explore this type of library. Several schools report discussions about abandoning such a course along with other “type of library” courses, but, on the other hand, the Universite de Montreal, which did abandon it in a revision of the curriculum some years ago, has recently reinstated it. The courses are taught either by sessional faculty who work in special libraries or faculty members with special library experience. There is a range of titles for these courses from a bald “Special Libraries” to “Management of Corporate and other Special Information Centres.” The methods of teaching are fairly standard and vary little from school to school. All emphasize reading and discussion, site visits, and interviews with special librarians. Most invite special librarians to speak to their classes. In most schools, the students have some form of project or paper. One school, Toronto, has a well-established practicum; students are assigned to a special library where they work on a special project as well as taking part in the activities of the library and reporting on them. At McGill and the Universite de Montreal, students take part in a six-week simulation of the establishment of a new special library in a pharmacological firm. At Western Ontario, students use a seminar method using specific problems to prepare, solve, and discuss at each class. Content of the courses is also relatively standard. All dwell on the philosophy of tailored service in the special library and the differences between special and other libraries. They all describe the importance of networking within the special library community, and the importance of associations and continuing education. All courses stress the importance of a knowledge of management in the special library and the ability to fit into the organization of which the library is a part. They cover aspects of management such as staff: job descriptions, salaries, hiring, interviewing, performance appraisal; finance: budgeting, records, funding methods, chargeback; planning and evaluation: the why and how. Most examine MACFARLANE & TEES/SPECIAL LIBRARY EDUCATION IN CANADA 307 the environment in which the special library exists, studying the place of the library in the organization, the people to be served, analysis of needs, resources available within organizations, and internal networking. All deal in some way with services offered and how to market them. Some cover the automation of the library in some detail, and discuss hardware, software, databases available, and how to choose them. Some concentrate on collection development. A number discuss special services provided by some libraries: translation, archives, records management, publications, and so on. Some cover planning and selecting space, furniture, and equipment. Some discuss alternatives to special librarianship such as free-lancing, entrepreneurship, and so on. The course descriptions, though detailed, do not, of course, show all the detail of the courses. Much is covered through observation of the work of the special libraries visited, through lectures by special librarians, and by the opportunity to ask them questions. Much more is learned in projects, papers, and activities such as case studies or games. What is special about special libraries is more an attitude than a collection of techniques, and this is what students need to learn from a course in special librarianship. OTHER APPROACHES Dalhousie’s School of Library and Information Studies has no course in special librarianship as such. Mary Dykstra, the director, describes the many ways in which a student can concentrate on special librarianship in his or her program at Dalhousie. They may choose a special library for their projects in such courses as “Collections Management,” “Systems Analysis,” “Database Management Systems,” “Library Automation and Networking,” “Library Promotion and Public Relations,” and so on. They may specialize in a reading course on a topic such as prison libraries, bibliotherapy, or map librarianship. They may take one or two specialized courses on law libraries or health science libraries. They may take a combined MLIS/LLB-a combined degree of the library school and the law faculty. They may take up to four graduate courses in other departments thus fitting themselves for specialized library service in such fields as education, business administration, or environmental studies. They may take a course in management information systems in the School of Business Administration. They also have an opportunity to use the “Work Experience Programme” of 100 hours, a requirement for the degree, in a special library. The earlier mentioned approaches are not, of course, confined to Dalhousie. Many other schools offer some or all of the mentioned opportunities in addition to their specific course in special 308 LIBRARY TRENDWFALL 1993 librarianship. These are all valid and valuable educational experiences for students who are interested in special librarianship. In many aspects, the education of special librarians north of the forty-ninth parallel is no different from that of our neighbors to the south. In a general sense, it is true that the two-year master’s program common in Canada is more supportive of developing many of the competencies that we have come to view as essential than a one-year program. The essence of the issue, however, whether one is north or south of that forty-ninth parallel, still remains the identification and encouragement of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to do the job in a special library. This has not been a neglected area of library literature. Over the years, many highly qualified and well-respected practitioners and educators have addressed the issue of developments in special library education. In terms of what special librarians expect from and are looking for in recent graduates, however, there are some landmark works that deserve particular attention. Any discussion of library education must also take into account the impact of the recently revised American Library Association Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs in Library and Information Studies (American Library Association, 1992). In the special library field, we should also look at the Special Libraries Association’s input into the process of developing the accreditation standards and the status of the final product. Finally, new initiatives such as SLA’s Refiort from the Presidential Study Commission on Professional Recruitment, Ethics and Professional Standards (Special Libraries Association, 1992) will help point the way toward the future. In 1986, Miriam Tees surveyed over 400 special librarians in order to determine and identify what these librarians required new graduates to know. The results of the study were not particularly surprising. Over 98 percent of respondents felt that the “ability to communicate orally” was an essential skill. Communication skills and reference skills ranked very high on the scale of the new graduate’s needs, lending further credence to the current preoccupation with marketing skills. Management skills were also considered very important by respondents, along with knowledge of computer capabilities, research skills, professional ethics, and an “attitude of service.” Certainly these are attributes that will always remain essential. However, it is also interesting to note that financial management-identifying costs, developing a budget, controlling expenditures, accounting-was judged only moderately important as were human resource management skills. Perhaps the intervening years and new economic realities have conspired to shift some focus toward how we manage people and money. Other concerns enunciated in Tees’s study remain MACFARLANE & TEESBPECIAL LIBRARY EDUCATION IN CANADA 309 current. Many people were interested in the area of recruitment into the profession and, indeed, felt that the type of person is more important than the skills and knowledge that individuals learn in school. Another issue was the desirability of an internship/practicum as an essential part of the education of the special librarian, either as a requirement or as an option for those with no working experience in information work. Further to the Tees survey, SLA published another study dealing with competencies unique to the information professional within a special library (Special Libraries Association, 1991a). In contrast to the previous work, this publication compared the competencies that may be needed in special libraries of different sizes. While it is evident that a professional in a one-person library will probably need different skills from the manager of a large facility, it is remarkable to note that there were more similarities in the librarian competencies reported here than differences. Four different-sized types of libraries were examined: the one-person/one-professionallibrary, the mid-sized special library, large corporate information centers, and branch libraries. The attributes or characteristics held in common by all to be desirable were the oft-mentioned “attitude of service,” enthusiasm, learning the techniques that lead to excellence, the ability to set and maintain high standards, marketing and “salesmanship” skills, and, of course, high-level communication skills. Interestingly enough, it is in this study that the concept of information professionals requiring the ability to analyze, assess, and package an information product is stated in more than one instance. Financial management and human resource skills are judged to be of more importance than in the earlier Tees survey. Each of the four authors within the study appears to assume that, since the task of the special librarian is to provide information, the competencies required are focused on this activity. Information or knowledge skills at a very high level are therefore an absolute necessity and an accepted base upon which all other competencies and skills will be built. Many library managers in larger settings do very little “information” work and find themselves spending all their time in management and marketing functions. However, in one-professional and mid-sized libraries, managers also participate in the actual access and provision of information to the clients as well as interpreting the information function to the organization. Librarians, therefore, must have three “areas” of competencies: 1. ‘‘Information’’-related and technological skills: These skills include the so-called “traditional” abilities of selecting, acquiring, controlling, and disseminating, as well as the ability 310 LIBRARY TRENDWFALL 1993 to carry out a reference interview, to develop search strategies, and to do online searching. The librarian must also have knowledge of information sources and either in-depth subject expertise or the willingness to acquire subject specialization. The knowledge and use of new technologies in acquiring, organizing, and providing information is essential, as is the ability to develop new and appropriate information systems within a given organization; 2. Management skills: The librarian must be able to manage in circumstances that may vary due to size of the parent organization, number of information professionals employed, economic strictures and realities, or any other environmental change. Included within the management functions are the abilities to plan, organize, supervise, budget, and market or sell not only the information function, but the abilities of librarians to control that function. For if others outside the information center control its management, there probably will be little corporate support for its continuance; 3. “Attitude” skills: It is in this area that we find the competencies most often referred to in surveys and studies. A professional attitude, commitment to service, enthusiasm, the ability to communicate, idealism, vision, flexibility, dedication, motivation-these characteristics or attributes have variously been identified as leading to success in librarianship. As Guy St. Clair, a former president of the Special Libraries Association, has suggested, there are “those characteristics-excellence in the service we provide, efficiency in the management of our operations, and enthusiasm in our organization and delivery of information-which will define us in the future