Visiting lecturer for #citylis, David Haynes, reports on the recent ISKO UK meeting, held on 14th March 2016.
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Last week I spoke at an ISKO UK meeting about education and training in information organization. There was a good range of speakers with different perspectives, from that of a manager wanting to secure the best training for her staff, to an independent consultant who constantly has to sell his skills, to academics providing structured programmes for post graduate students. There were also trainers, recruiters and prospective employers.
Some interesting common themes emerged from the panel discussion at the end. One theme referred to by several speakers was the need for introduction of information literacy training much sooner (starting at school). A second theme was the need to engage with other professionals and disciplines to push forward good practice in the management and organization of information, particularly in a corporate information management environment. Flexibility in looking for jobs and in repurposing core KO skills to operate in different environments is critical. There is likely to be increased demand for metadata and taxonomy skills over the next few years, which information professionals would be well-placed to address. There is a natural synergy between training and education and some overlap between the approaches. Training cannot be entirely effective if there isn’t some teaching of underlying principles. Training tends to be more focused on developing specific skills and applying principles to the work environment.
A valuable part of the meeting was the socialising afterwards. It was a great opportunity to meet prospective employers of #citylis students as well as understanding fellow professionals’ current concerns, meeting new contacts and general networking.
ISKO UK events are free to (full-time) #citylis students. Recordings and speakers’ slides are available online .
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David Haynes is on Twitter as @JDavidHaynes.
Find out more about postgraduate study in Library & Information Science at #citylis, meet alumni, current students and staff on our next open evening on Wednesday 8 June 2016. Register here.
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