Academic literature on the topic 'Association of Librarians in Colleges of Advanced Education'

The authors discuss the main vectors of RNPLS&T’s educational activities, in particular the program system of advanced professional education on the premises of the Library’s Learning and Educational Programs Division, specialized seminars and workshops for college lectur ers and students, graduate and post-graduate students of Moscow State Institute of Culture, webinars for librarians, research and educational organizations. The RNPLS&T’s material and technical resources used for these events are described. The results of RNPL&STs divisions (including those within the framework of the State Task Order) independent activities, and those achieved in collaboration with interested organizations and aimed at upgrading the skills of specialists in education, science and culture, are analyzed. The authors also focus on the projects held jointly with the National Library Association “Libraries of the Future”. The plans are to develop online educational programs and to cover pressing themes. Special attention is given to secondary schools and colleges, regional boarding schools, orphanages and organizations for children without parental support.

A Review of: Bundy, M. L., & Wasserman, P. (1968). Professionalism reconsidered. College & Research Libraries, 29(1), 5-26. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl_29_01_5 AbstractObjective – In their 1968 editorial for College & Research Libraries, Mary Lee Bundy and Paul Wasserman interrogated the nature of librarianship as a profession. They describe what they see as the limits of contemporary practice and offer ways forward for those concerned with the status of librarians. Design – The article offers an analysis of the question, making use of selected contemporary literature on American librarianship, rather than empirical research or a literature review. Setting – Bundy and Wasserman locate their critique in the daily work of academic librarians. Their descriptions are based on their own observations. Subjects – The authors focus on “the real world in which librarians practice” rather than “abstract academic terms” (p. 7). Their subjects are library workers who, by virtue of the MLS, are identified as professionals in the library workplace. Bundy and Wasserman note that these library workers “often spend considerable time being concerned about whether or not they are truly professional” and go on to take up these concerns themselves (p. 5). Methods – Bundy and Wasserman compare librarianship to “what is customarily considered to constitute professional behavior” (p. 7). Their comparison is structured through an analysis of three categories of professional relationships: librarian to client, librarian to institution, and librarian to professional association. This taxonomy of relationships is their own; the authors do not refer to analyses of professionalism in other disciplines such as nursing, social work, or education, fields where similar questions have arisen. The authors describe each of these professional relationships in turn through their own observations as a professor and Dean of the library program at the University of Maryland. Main Results – Bundy and Wasserman argue that librarianship does not meet the threshold for professional behaviour in any of these three categories of practice. The relationship between the client and the professional requires expertise: “the professional knows” (p. 8). According to the authors, most reference transactions involve questions that “would not overtax the capacity of any reasonably intelligent college graduate after a minimum period of on-the-job training” while an “essential timidity” prevents them from clearly stating what they do know (p. 8). Given this, the relationship with the client can never be professional: the client knows as much as or more than the librarian. Bundy and Wasserman make an exception for children’s librarians, arguing that their clientele benefits from the “close control of the content of collections to reflect excellence” (p. 9). Otherwise, librarians are “in awe” of both the expanding bibliographic universe and the “growing sophistication of middle-class readers” (p. 9). Unless librarians understand themselves to be experts, and engage as experts with their clients, they cannot be professionals. Professionals also see themselves as superior to their institution, struggling against “institutional authority which attempts to influence [their] behavior and performance norms” (p. 14). The professional resists disciplinary mechanisms that force workers to conform to institutional norms, maintaining authority over their own work. In Bundy and Wasserman’s view, librarians instead display “rigid adherence to bureaucratic ritual” where “the intellectual and professional design is sacrificed upon the altar of economic and efficient work procedures” (p. 15). Librarians focus on the efficient completion of narrowly defined tasks that enable compliance with institutional demands instead of placing their relationships with clients at the center of their professional life. Library administrators encourage this restriction on the status of their employees. The authors argue that the librarian who attempts to maintain a professional relationship “is seen as a prima donna, impatient with necessary work routines, unwilling to help out in emergencies, a waster of time spent in idle conversation with his clientele about their work--renegade and spoiled” (p. 16). Acting “like a professional” is incompatible with the ways librarians normally relate within the larger institution. Finally, professional status requires professional associations. These associations should ensure the quality of education in professional programs while facilitating the growth of connections between professional librarians. Again, librarianship fails: its professional association is guilty of “accrediting and re-accrediting programs of doubtful merit thereby giving its imprimatur to schools very distant from any ideal or even advanced attainment” (p. 21). When it gathers librarians together at annual meetings, those committees “consist of members explaining why they have failed to complete assignments or committees which deliberate weightily the means for perpetuating themselves instead of considering the purpose or program, or still others which consume hour after hour preoccupied with minutiae” in organizations that are reduced to “the associational excesses of the ritual, the routine, and the social” (p. 23). Conclusion – For Bundy and Wasserman, librarianship fails to qualify as a profession because the field cannot lay claim to a particular area of expertise, slavishly follows the rules of the institutions in which it is embedded, and is governed by professional associations that fail to ensure the rigor of professional education while reducing relationship-building to the reproduction of the association itself. Unless the field works to become more thoroughly professional, they argue, librarianship cannot advance or innovate, doomed to “not only decline rapidly, but ultimately face obsolescence” (p. 25).

This study explores ALA membership among directors at small liberal arts colleges. Results show that directors at the smallest colleges are much less likely to be members of ALA and ACRL than their colleagues at larger colleges are. The study investigates trends based on the director’s level of completed education, the director’s tenure at her or his institution, and the relative size of the institutions. The discussion questions why directors at smaller colleges are less likely to be members of ALA and ACRL and examines how those associations might expand their services among these individuals.

Abstract:ln 1984 the American Association of Medical Colleges´ Panel on the General Professional Education of the Physician challenged the medical community to take a leadership position in the effective application of information science and computer technology to medical education. The medical education community has risen to that challenge through the use of microcomputer technology and optical disc media including the recently developed fully integrated Hypermedia environment to enhance the learning environment.

The QUAL PRVLANC of advanced learning grounded on the policies made by the organization and leadership is considered significant for implementing these policies. The investigation was led to understand the association among governance features as well as QUAL PRVLANC in advanced learning. The characteristics includes the adoption of innovation, continuous observing of the surrounding, honesty to new thoughts, communiqué of the significance of applying new thoughts, the endowment of monetary capitals, and teaching and suitably satisfying the execution of new plans. The assessment technique was utilizing toward gather the information and questionnaire was the tool of research. Further, together descriptive plus inferential statistic techniques were utilized aimed at examining the information collected by the business schools. Moreover, study described that there is an optimistic association among the features of the governance of the professional colleges and receptiveness to QUAL PRVLANC.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing asserted the position that the practice doctorate should be the graduate degree for advanced nursing practice preparation. To maintain professional standards for military advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) and remain competitive for high-quality students, the Daniel K. Inouye Graduate School of Nursing at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences transitioned its APRN programs to the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. This article describes a model graduate curriculum that incorporates clinical partnerships to prepare APRNs for their future roles in the federal health care system. Background, stakeholders, program aims, implementation strategies, curriculum design, accreditation, challenges, and lessons learned are discussed.

Objective – To study the ways in which novice academic librarians’ perceptions of librarianship develop from the time they decide to attend library school through their first 6 to 24 months of library work. Design – Grounded theory method utilizing two qualitative research techniques: one-on-one, face-to-face interviews and document analysis. Setting – The libraries of three Texas universities, three Texas four-year colleges, and one Texas community college. Subjects – 12 professional academic librarians who graduated from eight different graduate schools. Participants were 6 to 24 months into their professional careers and had little or no pre-professional experience. Methods – The researchers sought participants through mailings, emails, electronic mailing list postings, and referrals from other participants. They conducted a small pilot study with two novice librarians to refine their research methodology. The researchers interviewed additional participants and analyzed the interview transcripts until categories of interest were identified and saturated. Saturation occurred at 12 participants, not including the pilot participants. Each interview was 30-45 minutes. The researchers recorded the interviews and systematically coded the transcripts using activist imagery. Four of the participants gave the researchers their “statement of purpose” essay that they used when applying for graduate school. These documents were also discussed with participants and analyzed. Main Results – From the data they collected, the researchers identified six categories of interest regarding librarians’ perceptions of librarianship: deciding upon a career, experiencing graduate school, continuing education, defining the work, evaluating the work, and (re)imagining the future. In considering librarianship as a career, the participants had not been entirely sure what it entailed, but they utilized what they did know about libraries and librarianship to generally deem the profession solid, safe, and/or noble. They had further explored librarianship to determine its compatibility with their personal characteristics. Such personal reflection had led participants to graduate school where they gained a real understanding of librarianship. The participants had not generally found graduate school to be academically challenging. They had also valued practical over theoretical instruction. Once in the workplace, the participants noted the value of continuing education to strengthen the skills they had learned in graduate school. Participants benefitted the most from informal mentoring and on-the-job training, i.e. “learning by doing” (p. 192). As novice librarians, the participants had learned to feel their way around their job expectations and note the differences between their responsibilities and those of paraprofessionals in the library. As the novice librarians further defined their work, they had also learned that academic librarianship is the sum of many parts, including collaboration with peers. In evaluating their work, the participants noted that they had come to distinguish “real” academic library work, that which uses their expertise and helps society, from “other” work such as clerical work (pp. 195-196). The sixth and final category was “(re)imagining the future.” Most of the participants predicted having advanced as academic librarians in the next five years but were otherwise unsure about what their futures would hold. Conclusion – The researchers made a number of valuable observations in their work with novice librarians. As the step of deciding upon a career seemed to be a murky quest, they thought it would be helpful to analyze public opinion of librarianship and use that information to offset misperceptions about what librarians do. This might help those considering librarianship to make informed and conscious decisions. The study data also provided insight into graduate school. The fact that the participants did not consider graduate school to be rigorous concerned the researchers. They feared that librarians entering the field might not deem it a serious profession. Because the participants favored practical over theoretical classes, the researchers thought it important for graduate schools to teach theoretical concepts in a way that is more satisfying to students. They felt that other applied fields, such as nursing, might provide examples of how to do so. The researchers also noted that graduate schools could do more to prepare students for life on the job. As new librarians reported favouring “real” work over “other” work, the researchers felt that students should hear it first in graduate school that all the work librarians do is an important and necessary part of academic librarianship. As most participants were uncertain about what their futures as academic librarians might look like, the researchers thought that graduate school professors should address that issue as well. Data from this study also gave insight into how employers might best serve new librarians. The researchers suggest looking to new teacher induction programs to get ideas for orienting new librarians to the profession. Orientation might include a combination of formal and informal techniques such as peer mentors, peer observation, new librarian training, and new librarian handbooks in the first year of employment. Finally, the researchers proposed ideas for future research. They believe it might be helpful to study experienced academic librarians or new public librarians for comparison to this study.

Abstract:Many have suggested that information technology in its various forms will continue to have an effect on all aspects of medicine, including medical education. If so, the introduction of information technology into medicine brings with it critical educational policy questions. This paper reports on the findings of an inquiry into the impact of information technology on medical education. It reviews the extent to which Canadian and American medical colleges have adopted the 1985 recommendations of the American Association of Medical Colleges. In particular, it looks at the recommendations that “medical informatics should become an integral part of the medical curriculum” and that “the teaching of medical informatics should include opportunities for specific instruction in its fundamentals as well as adequate examples of its application throughout the medical curriculum".

The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree was established to expand nurse practitioner education by adding new competencies. In 2004, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing released a position statement that redefined practice from only clinical care of patients to include nonclinical care. This policy position likely contributed to the rapid growth of DNP programs. Historical background on the development of the DNP is provided. An analysis was conducted of the programs reported in the American Association of Colleges of Nursing list of accredited DNP programs between 2005 and 2018 to compare whether the programs prepared graduates for advanced clinical practice or administrative or leadership. During this time, 553 DNP programs were established, 15% ( n = 83) are clinical, and 85% ( n = 470) are nonclinical. The adequate production of nurse practitioners in the future may be in jeopardy with this imbalance in educational resources, especially with the nation's growing need for primary care clinicians.

A Review of: Applegate, R. (2009). Who benefits? Unionization and academic libraries and librarians. The Library Quarterly, 79(4), 443-463. Abstract Objective – To investigate the quantitative benefits of unionization for libraries, librarians, and students at academic libraries in the United States. Design – Quantitative analysis of existing datasets. Setting – Academic libraries in the United States. Subjects – One thousand nine hundred four accredited colleges and universities in the United States. Methods – Institutions that provided data for both the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Academic Libraries Survey (ALS) and the NCES Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Service (IPEDS) survey series in 2004 were considered for inclusion in this study. Of these institutions, only those with student populations over 500 and employing more than one librarian were included. The study did not include specialized libraries at institutions where “most of their degrees were awarded in a single area” (p. 449). The institutions were categorized by type derived from data by Carnegie and the Association of Research Libraries. The final categories were: ARL, Doctoral Non-ARL, Masters, Baccalaureate, and Associates. Governance was determined by using information from IPEDS that classified the institutions as public, private not-for-profit, and private for-profit. Unionization status was derived from the Directory of Faculty Contracts and Bargaining Agents in Institutions of Higher Education. After private not-for-profit and private for-profit classifications were collapsed into one category, governance and unionization information were combined to create the final governance categories of: private, public nonunionized, and public unionized. The study analyzed the following characteristics in terms of institution type, governance, and institution type and governance interaction: ratio of students to librarians, ratio of library expenditures to institutional budget expenditures, average librarian salary, percentage of staff who were librarians, librarian salaries as a percentage of staff salaries, and percentage of the library budget spent on staff salaries. Main Results – Analysis revealed statistically significant differences (p< .05) between governance and student-librarian ratio and between governance and percentage of library budget spent on staff salaries. No consistently beneficial relationship between governance and student-librarian ratio was determined. A consistently positive relationship was found between governance and percent of the library budget spent on librarian salaries; all public unionized institution types had higher percentages of the library budget devoted to librarian salaries than private and public nonunionized institutions. All five dependent variables showed statistically significant differences (p< .05) when analyzed by institution type. Analysis by institution type and governance interaction found statistically significant differences (p< .05) for student-librarian ratios, librarian salary, and percentage of library budget devoted to staff salaries. Strong R2 values were determined for the dependent variables of: staff salaries as a proportion of library budget (.51) and student-librarian ratio (.34). Conclusion – Based on the results, the author stated that unionization appears to have positive or neutral benefits for the library, librarians, and students, regardless of institutional type. Further quantitative and qualitative research is needed to analyze the effects of unionization on library quality.

This thesis examines the history of Commonwealth Government higher education policy in Australia between 1958 and 1997 and its impact on the development of two groups of academic librarians: the Association of Librarians in Colleges in Advanced Education (ALCAE) and the Committee of Australian University Librarians (CAUL). Although university librarians had met occasionally since the late 1920s, it was only in 1965 that a more formal organisation, known as CAUL, was established to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information. ALCAE was set up in 1969 and played an important role helping develop a special concept of library service peculiar to the newly formed College of Advanced Education (CAE) sector. As well as examining the impact of Commonwealth Government higher education policy on ALCAE and CAUL, the thesis also explores the influence of other factors on these two groups, including the range of personalities that comprised them, and their relationship with their parent institutions and with other professional groups and organisations. The study focuses on how higher education policy and these other external and internal factors shaped the functions, aspirations, and internal dynamics of these two groups and how this resulted in each group evolving differently. The author argues that, because of the greater attention given to the special educational role of libraries in the CAE curriculum, the group of college librarians had the opportunity to participate in, and have some influence on, Commonwealth Government statutory bodies responsible for the coordination of policy and the distribution of funding for the CAE sector. The link between ALCAE and formal policy-making processes resulted in a more dynamic group than CAUL, with the university librarians being discouraged by their Vice-Chancellors from having contact with university funding bodies because of the desire of the universities to maintain a greater level of control over their affairs and resist interference from government. The circumstances of each group underwent a reversal over time as ALCAE's effectiveness began to diminish as a result of changes to the CAE sector and as member interest was transferred to other groups and organisations. Conversely, CAUL gradually became a more active group during the 1980s and early 1990s as a result of changes to higher education, the efforts of some university librarians, and changes in membership. This study is based principally on primary source material, with the story of ALCAE and CAUL being told through the use of a combination of original documentation (including minutes of meetings and correspondence) and interviews with members of each group and other key figures.

This study was designed to ascertain, analyse and compare the perceptions of College Librarians and their associates about the role responsibility which College Librarians in libraries in New South Wales Colleges of Advanced Education (CAEs) were actually assuming and ideally should be assuming as part of their role as library managers. Using as its basis a theoretical framework of role and role-related concepts, as developed by social psychologists such as Kahn et al. (1964), a role set group of Principals, Registrars and Senior Library Staff was identified as the survey population. A review of the literature about CAEs and their libraries and overseas studies about the role of library managers assisted with the development of a role responsibility questionnaire. Data from the questionnaire was analysed in respect of actual and ideal role responsibility and any gaps between actual and ideal role responsibility. Gaps between perceptions of actual and ideal role responsibility between College Librarians and associates may indicate a potential for role conflict for persons enacting the role of College Librarian. This study found statistically significant results in respect of both actual and ideal role responsibility between College Librarians and Senior Library Staff, which indicated that there was not clear agreement between the two groups about either the role responsibility currently assumed by College Librarians and that which ideally should be assumed. In respect of the gap between actual and ideal role responsibility, however, there was no statistically significant result between College Librarians and associates, indicating that the potential for role conflict resulting from divergent perceptions between role set groups was not evident. This does not preclude the potential for role conflict from other sources.

This chapter describes the evolution of the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Manchester Research Mentor Program, a cross-campus collaboration that trains writing tutors to assist students with information literacy skills. The first half of the chapter documents the first iteration of the Research Mentor Program, describing the recruitment, training, tutoring activities, and evaluation of the writing tutors/research mentors; the integration of the research mentors in First-Year Writing classroom library instruction sessions and writing tutorials; and the results of a three-semester evaluation study of the program's effectiveness at teaching composition students the information skills they will need to develop as writers, researchers, and critical thinkers. The second half of the chapter describes the Research Mentor Program's transformation as librarians, learning center staff, and classroom instructors adapted the program's goals by integrating the vision of the Association of College and Research Libraries' Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education into their pedagogy.

COVID-19 impacted in person learning, particularly for the health sciences. Nursing students learn valuable clinical skills in simulation labs on campus. When one university campus stopped in person instruction during the 2020 spring semester, two librarians worked together to identify resources to support a nursing course that quickly switched to remote learning. These resources ranged from library licensed content to free virtual reality simulations. In order to identify materials, the librarians first defined visual literacy within nursing, as well as met with various constituents to understand curriculum goals and needs. Making connections with both the faculty and the curriculum was the impetus for examining similarities between the Association of College and Research Libraries Visual Literacy Competency Standards and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Clinical Resources Essentials for Baccalaureate Nursing Education. Both librarians are eager to continue working on strategically and systematically incorporating visual literacy library instruction into the nursing curriculum.

The term integrative nursing embodies many terms and concepts that nurses have historically used to describe whole person/whole systems approaches to health care. This chapter focuses on the current status of incorporating concepts and principles of integrative nursing in graduate nursing programs with examples of both master’s and doctor of nursing practice education models. Two of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice Essentials, Organization and Systems Leadership and Advanced Nursing Practice are provided as examples of teaching integrative nursing in doctoral programs to prepare nurses to model and lead transformative change in our health care system.

Education for sustainability in higher education often faces numerous financial and institutional barriers. One overlooked mechanism for the promotion of education for sustainability is accreditation requirements. This chapter studies Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), a Christian liberal arts university accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which took advantage of this mechanism by choosing education for sustainability as the topic for one of its accreditation requirements, the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). EMU's QEP, Peace with Creation, builds on grassroots efforts and focuses on infusing education for sustainability throughout the undergraduate curriculum. Challenges faced along the path to implementation of the plan included confusion over the definition and scope of sustainability, early fatigue and cynicism by the student body, and uncertainty as to how the now well-supported plan would mesh with other sustainability efforts on campus. Three years into implementation, it has become clear that the accreditation mandate has significantly advanced education for sustainability at EMU, and it is evident that accreditation can apply powerful leverage for integrating education for sustainability into an institutional framework.