Future LIS education and evolving global competency requirements for the digital information environment: an epistemological overview

Raju, Jaya

Future LIS education and evolving global competency requirements for the digital information environment: an epistemological overview

Journal Article

2020

Permanent link to this Item

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32174
https://doi.org/10.3138/jelis.61.3.2019-0088

Authors

Raju, Jaya

Journal Title

Journal of Education for Library and Information Science

Abstract

In the context of an evolving digitally-oriented library and/or information science (LIS) discipline and framed by Andrew Abbott’s (2001) Chaos of Disciplines theory, this paper presents an epistemological overview of evolving competency requirements for a global digital information environment and the implications of this for future LIS education. In doing so it draws from i) an international case study of ongoing research by the IFLA BSLISE (Building Strong LIS Education) Working Group into the development of an international framework for the assessment of quality standards in LIS education, and ii) a national (South African) case study involving the compilation of a LIS competency index in a highly digitally-oriented information environment. The Chaos of Disciplines theory was originally conceptualized to demonstrate the evolution of disciplines in the social sciences. Its core principals of The Interstitial Character of a Discipline and Fractal Distinctions in Time are employed as a heuristic tool to connect the empirical evidence from these two purposively selected case studies to the inherent nature of the LIS discipline and the implications of this for i) competency requirements for professional practice in a highly digitized global information environment, and ii) future LIS education responding to these competency exigencies.