The information professional of the future: polymath or dinosaur?

1
The information professional of the future
polymath or dinosaur?

• Dr Judith Broady-Preston
• Senior Lecturer and Chair, Management Research
  Group
• Department of Information Studies, Aberystwyth
  University, UK
• Email jbp_at_aber.ac.uk
• Presentation to the inaugural CAVAL People in the
  Information Profession Conference, Melbourne,
  Australia, 15 and 16 October 2009

2
Introduction

• in a web 2.0 world, the "closed shop" model of
  professionalism is dead in the water. The
  fundamental transition of the "information
  society" is a transition from traditional forms
  of authority to a much greater focus on
  community on collaboration and personalisation
  with traditional barriers broken down. For a web
  2.0 model of society, we need a web 2.0 model of
  professionalism not just in our use of
  technology but in our culture and ways of
  behaving. (Bob McKee, July 2009)
• Paper presents work of Aberystwyth Management
  Research Group on related themes

3
Outline

• Brief background changing professional landscape
• Boundaries and barriers
• Definitions and scope
• Concepts of professionalism - attributes and
  identity
• Threats to Information Profession (IP) terminal
  decline?
• Managerialism
• Professional deskilling, knowledge and identity
• Discipline versus profession?
• Employer engagement and CPD
• Where are we now?

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Changing professional landscape

• Blurring (or demolishing?) boundaries
• Generic UK Government Panel on Fair Access to
  the Professions July 2009 report
• Information Profession Impact web2.0, 3.0, 4.0
  on sector boundaries
• Levels of practice glass ceiling shatters?
• Governmental drivers
• Employability Relationship HEIs and employers
• Transferability (e.g. Bologna)
• Recognition work-based learning development of
  competency frameworks and occupational standards
• Emphasis on skills can do

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Definitions and scope

• Is key question what is a profession? Cf
  Feather (2009)
• Oxford English Dictionary defines a profession
  as
• an occupation in which a professed knowledge of
  some subject, field, or science is applied a
  vocation or career, especially one that involves
  prolonged training and a formal qualification.
  Alsoas mass noun occupations of this kind.
  (2009)
• Of greater interest/significance is NOT
  exploration determinants/attributes per se, BUT
  an investigation of role of professions and
  individual professionals in context of
• Societal change
• Radical transformation cf. Ackroyd, 1996 and
  Hotho, 2008)

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Definitions and scope key question

• NOT exploration determinants or attributes, BUT
• How do professions position themselves and
  respond in context of
• Changing nature professions
• Relationships at macro and micro level
• Relationships professionals and society,
  including issues social identity and self-esteem

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Attributes and Identity

• Attributes professions vs occupations old hat?
• Payne 5 attributes Feather 4 attributes
• Concept of social meaning
• a collective professional culture and integrity,
  developed and maintained through formal and
  informal groups such formal groups including
  professional associations, and educational and
  research centres.
• Contemporary views
• NOT
• traits ( how should a professional behave?)
• OR
• functions (what should a professional do?)

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Professional identity and work contemporary views

• Professions now
• construct and use range techniques and practices
  to gain, legitimise and maintain control over
  professional work to obtain dominance over other
  groups and privileged economic/ social status
• BUT Professions under scrutiny - UK 2009 Panel on
  Fair Access to the Professions concluded that
• for all the progress that has taken place in
  recent years by government tackling poverty and
  disadvantage and all the efforts that have been
  made by the professions to expand the pool of
  talent from which they recruit many professions
  are still unrepresentative of the modern society
  they serveMost alarmingly of all there is strong
  evidence, given to the Panel, that the UKs
  professions have become more, not less, socially
  exclusive over time

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Professional identity role of professional
associations?

• Market dominance
• Reinforce demarcation lines spheres of
  influence
• Formalise education/knowledge base e.g CILIPs
  BPK
• Accredit education/training providers
  collective and individual impact
• Need for
• wider perspectives danger of narrow focus on
  power/knowledge
• dialectic or dialogue between individual and
  collective profession (association)
• Bigger players?
• Because our preoccupations are small and
  introverted, we are sending a signal to CILIP to
  care very narrowly about the internally focussed
  business of qualifications frameworks and little
  else. And we are sending a message to society at
  large that we do not really have a vision of
  ourselves as bigger players on the wider social
  stage. (Joint, 2007)

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Threats to Information Profession (IP) terminal
decline?

• Managerialism and intervention cf Health sector
• Professional deskilling and professional
  knowledge
• Centrality maintenance unique corpus of knowledge
  in professional identity
• Defensive strategies boundaries and expansion
• Professional skills/knowledge vs competency
  frameworks
• Generic vs specific
• Behaviours vs technical skill sets
• Key question if we no longer possess unique
  skills/knowledge (cf Feather) is IP still a
  profession?

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Discipline vs Profession?

• Role and relationship academe and practice
  harmony or tension?
• Professional associations
• specify knowledge BUT do not deliver education
• recognise education providers accreditation and
  conferring of professional status NB differing
  models
• Audunson 3 differing approaches IP education
• Discipline/Profession/Vocation
• Need for pluralist approach? Co-exist in a
  fruitful tension?
• No agreed global/pan-European/Pacific rim
  curriculum
• Is IP a unique profession? Cf Paynes IM study

12
Employer engagement

• Existence/impact extreme views
• Some futurists and radical thinkers, consider
  that the concepts of qualifications and
  professions may become obsolete. Instead,
  people will continually build their own personal
  portfolios of learning and development and access
  other learning in an open way on the internet.
  Each person will have a learning plan and
  qualifications will become incidental markers
  along the way for those who need them. (Edwards,
  2005)
• Need for pro-active employer engagement
• IP self-regulatory profession ergo recognition
  of VALUE of professional qualifications -
  employers choice!
• CILIP 2009 TFG
• Fundamental to continued existence?

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Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

• Professional qualifications need to be
• Relevant and timely i.e. contemporary
• Ergo need for individual CPD
• Balancing a librarys needs with individuals
  needs complicated process
• Needs as perceived by individuals vary from those
  perceived by their managers
• overall lack of understanding across the
  profession about who should be responsible for
  what aspects of CPD, what should be offered, and
  who should be taking the initiative.
• CILIP view (CPD Framework, 2004)
• Effective partnership essential if overlapping
  aims improved performance and individual career
  enhancement are to be met.
• Mandatorycompulsory CPD? Cf CILIP July 2008

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Where are we now?

• Challenging times future not straightforward
  or assured
• Will the 21st Information professional be a
• polymath i.e. multi-skilled, flexible,
  adaptable and continually learning?
• dinosaur clinging to outmoded prescriptive
  working practices, inflexible, hidebound,
  obsolete/irrelevant skills set?
• Mandatory CPD offers the profession opportunities
  to
• Demonstrate equivalency with other professions
• Market ourselves positively as highly trained and
  motivated professionals
• Ensure recognition of the value of professional
  qualifications training in a volatile
  environment

15
Current Aberystwyth Projects professional
knowledge and identity

• Broady-Preston
• CPD, employer engagement and employability
• blurring the boundaries mapping the
  contemporary IP
• Determining professional skills/identity in a
  volatile environment the hybrid information
  professional (jointly with BL)
• Toft librarians perceptions of themselves and
  their role
• Ramsey contemporary roles and responsibilities
  of paraprofessionals
• Williams cross-case comparison of the IP in the
  legal environment
• Masereka Pius change and conflict impact on
  role and behaviours of academic librarians

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Finally

• Hopefully a starting point for further
  discussion/debate
• Thank-you for listening happy to answer
  questions either now or in the future
• Contact jbp_at_aber.ac.uk