Whats amiss with education for librarianship in Australia?
Discussions with colleagues and my own observations and reflections suggest that something’s amiss with university-based education for librarianship in Australia. The situation may be so grave as to be fatal. Three key issues must be addressed if we are to confirm the diagnosis and find a cure: • what is our field? • what is our product? • where’s the quality? What is our field? Perhaps the central issue is that we are losing a secure sense of what field we work in. What is librarianship? I use this term throughout, and sometimes also the term information studies to indicate the wider field of which librarianship is a part. What skills and attitudes are needed to be successful in this field, whatever it is? Do students who graduate with Australian qualifications in librarianship/information studies have these attributes? We are not alone in our insecurity. References later in this paper to the North American scene point to similar anxiety there. Changes in the information professions m
