Challenges in Educating 21^st-Century Information Professionals

本文是美国伊利诺伊大学香槟分校图书情报研究生院院长John Unsworth教授在"第三届中美数字时代图书馆学情报学教育国际研讨会"上的发言稿。文中,John Unsworth教授回顾了数字图书馆员教育的发展历程,指出未来图书情报教育的挑战主要来自三个方面:一是如何保持信息学院的独立性并向外界表明信息职业的重要性;二是来自于信息职业本身——部分人抵制实践工作中不可避免的变化;三是信息学覆盖的领域广泛,而每个人只能选择专攻其中一些领域,这使得每一所信息学院都是独特的。为应对挑战,信息学院应为学生提供全面的教育,因此需要聘用有关从业者作为兼职教师来讲授尚未覆盖的重要实践领域课程。未来的图书馆员必须具备统计和计算方法、自然语言处理、语料库语言学、数字人文等多方面的知识,并准备好向人们提供有关这些的知识咨询,成为一个合格的"嵌入式馆员"。

In a number of talks today,speakers have discussed the changes that are coming,and that have come,to library and infolrmation science education;some speakers have celebrated the changes they discuss,and others have decried them;some have reminded us of important knowledge from the past,and others of important challenges in the future.So,to begin this talk on educating future librarians,I would like to outline my general position on these issues.I believe it is necessary for our discipline to evolve,but I want to point out that evolution is not simply another word for change：evolution is a special case of transformation,in which the past is carried forward in a form that responds to changes in the environment.It＇s true that not all evolutionary transformations are successful,and it is also true that it is possible to survive over time without significantly evolving：sharks and horshoe crabs are examples of this.But the organisms that change their environment（for better or worse）are those that evolve：in other words,organisms and environments evolve in reciprocal relationship.Or,as Senior Expert Meng Guangjun told us earlier this afternoon,＂it is highly commendable to review and amend our programs from time to time,in response to changing circumstances.＂