Hey there. Yesterday evening after work I attending a meeting/focus group which was attempting to analyse the changes which have occurred and that are continuing to occur in e-information job roles. It was being held by another part of my company, but the other participants that were there seemed to come from quite a diverse set of occupational backgrounds, yet all working within what could be termed e-information roles. There were people from media, various public sector organisations, education, business, academia…
We were first given a brief presentation about the research that had been conducted into this subject by the researchers so far, and that which had already been gathered from the literature. It was quite interesting to actually sit and think about the variety of occupations where e-information work is becoming increasingly important as well as increasingly common. Areas such as e-government and e-learning seemed to be particularly prominent, but in addition to this there is a whole variety of areas involved in this which I had never really thought much about, particularly enginneering and construction and such, sectors which to be honest, i really don’t know very much about. There was also an increased awareness of e-information in business, not simply as e-commerce, but where the information is itself the product, for a variety of different uses and purposes.
After we had been given an outline of precisely what constituted an ‘e-information role’ in the context of this research, and an outline of the project that was being conducted, we broke off into groups to discuss things in more detail, drawing from each of our own individual experiences. The questions we were asked to discuss involved numerous different facets of the same theme - which sectors did we believe e-information roles were most prominent in, what skills did we believe were neccessary to do such roles, examples of job titles, particularly ones that had changed to reflect new e-info roles and so forth. It was interesting what others had to say. Personally, i felt a like my youth was a slight disadvantage in this instance, as for as long as i have been interested, things have pretty much all been electronic, and i felt as if i could not really comment on how job roles such as my own had changed (as i have only been in the job since November!) - although i could make some informed guesses. It was also quite difficult to think ‘outside the box’ as it were, beyond my own individual job and sector and into that of others’. It opened my eyes to see how information professionals were viewed and utlised in other areas, such as business, by those that had not neccessarily done the ‘typical’ qualifications, such as the postgrad ILS course or IM degree etc. In fact, among some of the group there was a general belief that such training was unneccessary as a prerequisite for many e-information roles, particularly those that were more management orientated and did not involve any kind of technical knowledge or speciality. I can understand where these people are coming from in a sense, as being older and more experienced they themselves confessed to having entered the profession without such qualifications. Indeed, i presume (although do not know for sure) that such degrees such as the information management etc. are probably fairly new and were not available, say, 20 years ago. Similarly, i can imagine that ILS courses were most likely fairly centred upon librarianship back then too - creating a divide between traditional librarianship and information managers that is gradually growing closer these days.
However, i think that there is still something to be said for the ILS courses etc.! ( although i have to say that) in defining the profession. But it has made me think more widely about how i define my potential career - do i think of myself as a librarian? (I think that, in general, yes, i do - and i am quite happy with this identification). But is this really a true reflection of the roles that many similar people end up doing when they leave such courses? Hmmm…
Other small points of interest: A lecturer from my old course was meant to turn up but didn’t, which was a shame…; someone raised the very interesting (and related) point about where on earth are jobs such as that we were discussing to be found on websites such as monster and s1jobs etc.? - i’m glad someone else seems to have noticed that we fall through almost every classification - although it was also pointed out that s1jobs used to have a category called ‘librarianism’ (a disease?); finally, a researcher whose work i had used during the lit review and research of my dissertation was also there, but alas, i did not have a chance to speak to him. Oh well, maybe another day…
Technorati Tags: e-information, job roles, work, change, librarianship
