Educating The Librarian
As part of his platform when running for ALA President in 2006, Gorman pledged to address what he called the education crisis.
The article Whither Library Education? set out his views on the current state of LIS education. He concluded that LIS education had become technocentric, male-dominated and out of touch with the needs of practitioners. This view was critiqued by Dillon and Norris, while both papers were critiqued by Pawley for their treatment of the issue of gender in librarianship.
Library and Information Science academics also responded in the professional press, questioning whether there was a crisis to address.
During his year in office, Gorman introduced an initiative intended to discuss the issue of education. Sessions were held with practitioners and academics. However, Gorman’s traditional views may have led to younger librarians turning away from the idea and their views not being represented:
“Whatever the case, after all that effort we still don’t know what current students and recent graduates really think about the educations upon which they spend so much money.”
Despite the initiative, accreditation and curricula remained unchanged at the end of Gorman’s tenure.
Read more about this topic: Michael Gorman (librarian)
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