Information Professional Or IT Professional? the Knowledge And

Jaya Raju 739

Information Professional or IT Professional? The 17.4. Knowledge and Skills portal Required by Academic Librarians in the Digital publication, Library Environmentfor

Jaya Raju accepted abstract: As library and information science (LIS)and becomes an increasingly technology-driven profession, particularly in the academic library environment, questions arise as to the extent of information technology (IT) knowledge and skills that LIS professionals require. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain what IT knowledge and skills are needed by academic librarians in the digital library environment. Groundededited, in pragmatist epistemology and using ideas from sociologist Andrew Abbott’s Chaos of Disciplines, the study draws empirical evidence from LIS job advertisements and a national online survey of academic libraries in South Africa. It concludes that 70 to 75 percent of job advertisementscopy in the academic library sector stipulate requirements for advanced IT skills. The author recommends that the LIS discipline seize the opportunity presented by what Abbott calls its “interstitial character” and its tendency toward “fractal distinctions in time” to stake an intellectual claim on this technology-driven extension of its disciplinary domain. reviewed,

peer Introduction is he library and information science (LIS) profession has become increasingly mss. technology-driven, particularly in academic libraries, where rapidly evolving technologies have gained considerable traction. In this changing environment, TLIS professionals may wonder about the extent of information technology (IT) knowl- This edge and skills they might require. Janie Mathews and Harold Pardue, in a study of

IT skill sets mentioned in librarian position advertisements, found that “librarians are incorporating a significant subset of IT profes- The library and information sionals’ skill sets,” including Web development, systems development, and systems applica- science (LIS) profession has tions.1 Betha Gutsche, too, observed that an become increasingly technol- increasing number of library positions “tilt ever ogy-driven, particularly in closer to the entirely technical end of the scale.” Particularly in larger organizations, such as 17.4. academic libraries, where rap- academic libraries, she reported, “Technology idly evolving technologies have competencies comprise an ever-growing piece 2 portal gained considerable traction. of the performance pie.” In Helen Partridge, Julie Lee, and Carrie Munro’s focus group study, respondents acknowledged that “the boundaries between IT professional and LIS professional were rapidly narrowing.”3 Jacquelyn Erdman, commenting on the “education for a new breed of librarian” in academic libraries, remarked, “Librarians are not getting the educationpublication, needed to enter a field where the line between librarian and computer tech is blurredfor more and more.”4 Jaya Raju intimated at this blurring of boundaries when she found that technology- related skill sets received high frequency counts in her study of the requirements listed for academic library professional positions. She suggested that future studies should probe the extent of the need for technical skills involvingaccepted digital library architecture and software, technical and quality standards, HTML [hypertext markup language] coding, web mark-upand languages such as SGML [standard generalized markup language] and XML [extensible markup language], and possibly even some skills in programming and scripting languages.5

This situation poses challengesedited, in the following areas: 1. The professional identity of librarians, where Mathews and Pardue say the “cur- copy rent intersection between the skill sets of librarians and the skill sets of IT professionals . . . has [serious] implications for the very definition of our profession”;6 2. LIS workplace knowledge and skills requirements, and whether LIS graduates are adequately “prepared to take on serious technology roles in academic libraries”;7 andreviewed, 3. LIS education curriculum review and revision; if librarian roles incorporate peersignificant IT skill sets, then this has implications for curriculum revision in LIS is education. Should LIS educators partner with cognate disciplines in teaching IT skills? Should the LIS discipline stake an intellectual claim on this technology- driven extension of traditional skill sets and assume this role itself? Or should mss. LIS educators leave employers to hire IT people for the more technical aspects of LIS services? This These are critical questions for which more research needs to be undertaken. The purpose of this paper is to begin by ascertaining the extent of IT knowledge and skills required by academic librarians in the digital library environment in South Africa. Jaya Raju 741

Research Approach

This study is part of a wider research project funded by the National Research Founda- tion of South Africa spanning a three-year period (2014–2016). The study’s primary aim is to develop a national LIS professional competency index for the higher education sector in South Africa. Such an index would provide an objective framework against which LIS employers and employees might ascertain existing knowledge and skills as well as identify areas for further knowledge and skills acquisition. Importantly, such a 17.4. competency index would also inform curriculum review and revision in LIS education in South Africa, where academic libraries are a major employer of LIS graduates. Empirical evidence was drawn from a content analysis of academic library portaljob advertisements in South Africa for three years (2014–2016) as well as from quantitative data drawn from a 2015 national online survey of 23 university libraries in South Africa. Grounding the study in pragmatist epistemology—that is, focusing on what works in responding to the research question rather than on the methods used or on the paradigms underlying the methods8—the researcher found philosophicalpublication, justifica - tion for use of mixed methods research. The pragmatist paradigm allows for use of both quantitative and qualitative philosophical assumptions infor addressing a research problem.9 According to John Creswell, with exploratory sequential mixed methods, “The researcher first begins with a qualitative research phase . . . The data are then analyzed, and the information used to build into a second, quantitative phase . . . The qualitative phase may be used to build an instrumentaccepted that best fits the sample under study . . . in the follow-up quantitative phase.”10 In the broader study mentioned earlier, the researcher began with exploratory qualitativeand collection of data via semi-structured interviews with purposively selected academic LIS professionals and content analysis of relevant job advertisements. Based on the findings in this exploratory phase, reported in an earlier paper,11 the researcheredited, designed a data collection approach, discussed in the “Methodology” section, for a subsequent quantitative study responding to the research question “What is the extentcopy of IT knowledge and skills required by academic librarians in the digital library environment?”

Theoretical Support

Andrew Abbott’sreviewed, Chaos of Disciplines, a sociological analysis of academic fields, provides theoretical support for this inquiry into the extent of IT knowledge and skills required by academicpeer librarians in the digital library environment.12 Abbott’s theory, emanating fromis the social sciences, has been applied to LIS disciplinary issues previously. Laurie Bonnici, Manimegalai Subramaniam, and Kathleen Burnett used ideas from Abbott’s Chaos of Disciplines to analyze how distinct a departure the iSchool movement is from mss. 13 traditional LIS education in North America. Jaya Raju used the Chaos of Disciplines theory to examine if African LIS education in the digital age has an opportunity to broaden its This disciplinary domain.14 Abbott’s analysis of the development of social science disciplines used a framework that consisted of a set of core principles. Of these, two principles were applied to the research problem regarding the extent of IT knowledge and skills required by academic 742 Information Professional or IT Professional?

librarians in the digital library environment: (1) what Abbott calls the “interstitial character” of a discipline, referring to a discipline that is “not very good at excluding things from itself . . . a discipline of many topics”; and (2) what he calls “fractal distinctions in time,” which refers to social science disciplines “rediscovering the wheel”—that is, over time, good ideas resurface but present themselves in a new guise that makes them appear different from the old ideas.15 In the case of the interstitial character of a discipline, Abbott explains that some social science disciplines have an inherent tendency to “acquire” topics and no “intellectually 17.4. effective way” of denying them.16 A disci- A discipline such as LIS has a natu- pline such as LIS has a natural interstitial portal ral interstitial position that, like position that, like sociology, gender studies, and other fields of study, occupies sociology, gender studies, and other spaces between other disciplines. LIS is fields of study, occupies spaces therefore in perpetual conflict with other between other disciplines. LIS is disciplinary “spaces,” such as information technology, informationpublication, systems, therefore in perpetual conflict with and computer science,for and also within other disciplinary “spaces,” such as itself. These conflicts produce the long history of debates in the literature, still information technology, informa- continuing, around the disciplinary iden- tion systems, and computer science, tity ofaccepted LIS, including nomenclature issues around “library science,” “librarianship,” and“library studies,” “information science,” or “information studies,” and the more recent addition of the iSchool concept to these debates.17 In fractal distinctions in time, a “fractal” is a mathematical figure where each part has the same statistical character as edited,the whole. 18 Hence in Abbott’s context of disciplines, a new context (for example, a digital library) presents an “old idea” (for example, the traditional LIS principles ofcopy cataloging and classifying information) in new language, such as metadata management using metadata standards and protocols. In other words, LIS has reconceptualized traditional skills using new technologies.19 As Gutsche explains, while “the schism between traditional library practices and new experimental technologies gapes . . .reviewed, in reality, there is strong continuity, with the future building on the past, not splitting sharply from it.”20 The principles of the interstitial character of a discipline and fractal distinctions in time frompeer Abbott’s Chaos of Disciplines have relevance to the research question of as- certainingis the extent of IT knowledge and skills required by academic librarians in the digital library environment. Therefore, the principles were used to gain understanding mss.of this aspect of social reality under investigation.

This Literature

The literature abounds globally in studies on the increased demand for computer and IT skills in LIS services, many of which are traditional services now delivered or enhanced Jaya Raju 743

via the use of evolving digital technologies.21 This growing demand for IT skills shows evidence of the LIS discipline’s interstitial character and its fractal distinctions in time. Mzwandile Shongwe conducted a content analysis of newspaper LIS job advertisements from 2009 to 2012 in South Africa and found an “increasingly essential nature of IT knowledge and skills in the LIS job market in South Africa.” He explains that complex IT systems are used to process information and hence libraries “are actively recruiting personnel who are skilled in IT.”22 The skills being sought, Shongwe relates, include Web The literature abounds globally 17.4. development, computer networking, institu- in studies on the increased de- tional repository development, and database design and development, which are skill ar- mand for computer and IT skillsportal eas related to computer science, information in LIS services, many of which systems, information technology, and even are traditional services now de- computer software engineering. He observes that this increased demand for IT skills has livered or enhanced via the use led to new job titles, such as “e-resources of evolving digitalpublication, technologies. librarian,” “systems librarian,” “repository for librarian,” “Web application librarian,” and “library technology specialist.” The qualifications sought are not just LIS qualifications but IT-related qualifications as well. Mathews and Pardue, in a content analysis studyaccepted of 100 job advertisements from the online JobList of the American Library Association (ALA) over a five-month period in the United States, found a need for Weband development, systems development, and systems application in librarian positions. These listings suggest “that librarians are incorporating a significant subset of IT professionals’ skill sets.” For these authors, one a librarian and the other a computer scientist, “This trend poses challenging questions for [librarians’] identity and profession.”edited, 23 Mathews and Pardue point out that the development of digital collections requires traditional collection development skills as well as new skills such as servercopy setup and maintenance. Such new skills, they claim, are commonly associated with disciplines such as computer science, information systems, information technology, and computer software engineering,24 as also mentioned by Shongwe.25 Hence they sought to ascertain the “magnitude of the intersection between 26 the skill setsreviewed, of librarians and the skill sets of IT professionals” —similar to this paper, which seeks to ascertain the extent of IT knowledge and skills required by academic librarians in South Africa. While job advertise- peer ment studies by Shongwe and others provide The development of digital evidenceis of the increasing demand for IT skill sets in librarian and LIS-related positions,27 collections requires traditional mss.only a few (including Mathews and Pardue collection development skills and the Raju study reported in this paper) as well as new skills such as This have attempted to investigate the extent of the intersection between the skill sets of librarians server setup and maintenance. and those of IT professionals. Mathews and Pardue found “significant intersection between the skill sets of librarians and the skill sets of IT professionals,” with 72 percent of the 100 librarian job advertisements analyzed 744 Information Professional or IT Professional?

requiring at least one IT skill.28 Among these IT skills were Web development, systems development, systems application, and computer networking. Interestingly, according to Mathews and Pardue, “Programming languages were not in high demand by employers [of librarians].”29 Katherine Howard had a similar finding in a survey of Australian academic librarians and LIS educators on knowledge and skills required in a digital library environment. She observed that “programming languages were particularly low ranked” by survey respondents.30 Howard interpreted this finding as perhaps the result of academic libraries being part of universities supported by well-established IT 17.4. departments with the necessary programming expertise. Debra Riley-Huff and Julia Rholes, in their study, recognized that LIS is an “increasingly technology-driven profession” with library administrators “increasingly seekingportal librarians with a wider range of Information Technology (IT) skills.”31 To ascertain if LIS graduates are adequately “prepared to take on serious technology roles in academic libraries,” they collected data by inspecting course catalogs and website curriculum pages of ALA-accredited LIS programs in the United States for inclusion of technology- related courses. They also conducted a “targeted survey” of “librarianspublication, with significant technology roles”—that is, librarians whose job titles contained IT-relatedfor nomenclature, such as “systems,” “Web,” or “digital.” One of the conclusions of their study was that both academic library “information technology job candidates” as well as administrators involved in hiring decisions indicated “a need for additional [IT] courses at a more 32 advanced level” in LIS education. This conclusionaccepted clearly speaks to Mathews and Pardue’s finding that the skill sets of librarians and those of IT professionals intersect 33 significantly. While Riley-Huff and Rholes doand refer to Mathews and Pardue’s study, they conclude that “more research is still needed to identify key technology skills needed” in academic libraries.34 Various other studies have deliberated, directly or indirectly, on the encroachment of technology into the knowledge edited,and skill requirements of librarians, particularly in academic libraries. Raju in her analysis of advertisements for academic library jobs in South Africa (2012–2013) foundcopy that “technology associated with LIS applications” achieved a high frequency count. She called that result “not surprising given the impact of technology on the academic library of the digital era.”35 In her 2016 follow-up study of academic library job advertisements (2014–2016), triangulated with data from a national online survey reviewed,of 23 academic libraries in South Africa, technology again featured strongly in desired LIS professional knowledge and skill areas such as “scholarly electronic information resources,” “library ICT [information and communications technology]/ systemspeer applications,” “integrated library systems,” and “digital repository, discovery andis preservation activities.” Technology also featured prominently in the generic skills category, where “general computer proficiency” achieved the second highest frequency mss.score, just 1 percentage point less than the top scoring “management” generic skill.37 In a focus group study among Australian LIS professionals on the knowledge, skills, and This attributes required by LIS professionals in a “Web 2.0 World (and beyond),” technology ranked among the eight themes that “emerged as being critical to ‘Librarian 2.0.’” However, the participants in the 14 focus groups “generally acknowledged that technology was a means to an end and not an end in itself.” There was “general consensus across all focus groups that while IT is important within the context of Library 2.0 and Jaya Raju 745

Librarian 2.0, it is not the dominant or main aspect.” The general view of the focus group respondents was that successful librarians “need to be aware of, and have some fundamental understanding of the emerging technology . . . but they do not need to be IT professionals per se.”38 On the other hand, Goutam Biswas, writing in the Asian context, claims that “information technology is playing a crucial role in restructuring of the libraries” because of the

shift from human dependent operations to machine dependency, mechanization (data 17.4. processing) to knowledge processing, stand alone system to network computing, local LAN [local area network] to wireless access protocol systems [and] library automating (in-house) to web-enabled services (WAN [wide area network] access).39 portal In this context of IT pervasiveness, Biswas stresses the need for academic librarians to acquire new skills to develop and manage digital libraries as the “empowerment of library and information professionals with IT skills is aimed at providing services that are expected . . . in the new environment.”40 These apparently conflicting views reiter- ate the need to conduct research on the extent of IT knowledge andpublication, skills required by academic librarians. for On the greater African continent, the IT factor in LIS services has also been acknowledged in one way or another. While the rise of information technology offers opportuni- ties for African university libraries to embrace the digital age, it also presents challenges relating to funding, human resource training, Internet connectivity, and communications 41 accepted infrastructure. Notwithstanding these challenges, Penninah Musangi encourages Ke- nyan academic libraries to incorporate, as andtheir counterparts in the developed world are doing, Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter into their service provision. In this way, academic libraries can follow “netGen” (Internet generation) users “into their social spaces by allowing [them] to participate in the creation of content, keeping [them] constantlyedited, updated and building services based on their feedback.”42 This is a further example of traditional LIS services beingcopy delivered and Many studies show an encroach- even enhanced using new IT platforms. In a systematic review of current literature, Em- ment into the jurisdictional manuel Baro and Vara Godfrey investigate spaces of other disciplines and a the extent toreviewed, which Web 2.0 tools have been resulting blurring of disciplinary used to render library services in Africa and, specifically, the challenges associated with boundaries between LIS and such the usepeer of this second-generation Web-based fields as information technology, is and Internet information technology by li- information systems, computer brarians.43 Along with recommendations for mss.African academic librarians to “fully utilise science, and even its subdisci- Web 2.0 tools as their counterparts in de- pline of software engineering. This veloped countries [do],” Baro and Godfrey urge “training of librarians . . . to overcome the challenge of technical know-how regarding new technologies.” They also call for an investment by university libraries in alternative power sources to ensure a regular supply of electric power for the use of information technology.44 746 Information Professional or IT Professional?

Globally, academic libraries in particular have witnessed an increasing incorporation of IT skill sets into LIS professional positions. Many studies show an encroachment into the jurisdictional spaces of other disciplines and a resulting blurring of disciplinary boundaries between LIS and such fields as information technology, information systems, computer science, and even its subdiscipline of software engineering. Despite challenges confronting the adoption of IT in academic library services in the developing world, including Africa, libraries still desire to embrace the digital age through electronic acquisition, organization, preservation, discoverability, and scholarly communication of 17.4. digital resources and services in response to user needs. In the developing world, too, despite challenges, the interstitial nature of the LIS discipline, together with its fractal distinctions in time, play themselves out. portal While the literature reflects many studies that focus on this proliferation of information technology in LIS services, few studies have concentrated on the extent of IT incorporation into the knowledge and skills required by LIS professionals in academic libraries. The study reported in this paper hopes to make a contribution to this gap in the literature by focusing on this research question in the specific contextpublication, of academic libraries in South Africa, with theoretical support from Abbott’s forChaos of Disciplines.

Methodology

The secondary research question—the extent of IT knowledge and skills required by academic librarians in the digital library environment—formedaccepted part of a wider mixed methods study on developing a national LISand professional competency index for the higher education sector in South Africa. The researcher conducted a content analysis of academic library job advertisements in South Africa for the period 2014 to 2016. Con- tent analysis is a commonly used descriptive technique for determining what words or concepts are present in a documentedited, to discover features and trends.45 Content analysis of job advertisements is a well-established method of researching workplace requirements in a particular sector.copy46 The author examined a total of 96 advertisements using the Mail & Guardian weekly newspaper of Johannesburg, South Africa, as well as the mailing list of the Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA), the country’s LIS professional body, and institutional websites referred to by the Mail & Guardian or LiasaOnline and its related reviewed, e-mail lists. She searched for all advertisements to fill professional positions requiring a LIS qualification. This report includes job advertisements collected from January 2014 up to July peer2016. At the time of the study, there were 23 universities in South Africa with well- establishedis academic libraries, with 3 more new universities being established. Thirty-two advertisements were examined for 2014, 31 for 2015, and 33 for the seven-month period mss.of January to July 2016 (96 professional position academic library job advertisements in total). The large number in the last seven-month period possibly indicated an increasing This number of academic library positions due to academic libraries responding to a higher education environment increasingly characterized by digital scholarship. To investigate the extent of IT knowledge and skills required by academic librarians, the author compiled a list of advanced IT skill sets relating to the academic library environment drawn from the literature, both local and international. The 96 advertise- Jaya Raju 747

ments were then qualitatively reviewed to iteratively adjust the list of advanced IT skill sets compiled from the literature to more accurately reflect job requirements in the advertisements. For a fuller picture for comparison purposes, basic IT skills derived from the advertisements were also added to the list (see Table 1). The aspects of the job advertisements focused on were job titles, requirements, and recommendations. Due to the highly specific nature of the skill set to be investigated (IT skills) and the relatively small number of documents being examined, the researcher did not consider it necessary to use data mining software as she had done in previous studies.47 Data mining “by 17.4. hand” allowed for the capture of finer nuances in the data, such as overlap in skill sets, which could have been lost in software application of data mining. The 96 advertisements were then reviewed for a second time, this time quantitatively, with simple codingportal to determine frequency counts and relative frequency percentages for the IT skill sets. This quantitative analysis appears in Table 1. Cognizant of Susan Myburgh and Anna Maria Tammaro’s caution about overreliance on job advertisements alone to determine required “competencies” of librarians in the digital age,48 the IT skills list generated via quantitative data mining ofpublication, job advertisements was triangulated with relevant findings from a national onlinefor survey. The survey was conducted in 2015 as part of the national LIS professional competency index research project mentioned earlier. The survey questionnaire aimed to collect data to be used in developing a national LIS competency index for the higher education LIS sector in South Africa. Senior LIS professionals in 23 of Southaccepted Africa’s 26 university libraries were targeted (three newly established universities were excluded because libraries were still being established for those institutions). Twenty-twoand of the 23 universities responded to the survey, providing from 5 to 15 responses each. The library directors were asked to select senior LIS professional staff, for example, senior librarians, to complete the questionnaire. Of the 207 potential respondents identified by the university libraries and to whom an online questionnaireedited, using SurveyMonkey was sent, 140 responded (68 percent return rate). Selected findings from this survey that speak to the extent of IT incorporation into the knowledgecopy and skills required by LIS professionals in academic libraries were triangulated with the findings from the quantitative analysis of library job advertisements described earlier. Findings are presented and discussed in the next section. reviewed, Findings and Discussion

Tablepeer 1 captures findings from the content analysis of the 96 job advertisements. At the broadis level, IT skill sets categorized as “advanced” for the purposes of this study col- lectively attained a relative frequency percentage of 74 percent. Basic IT skill sets attained mss.a relative frequency percentage of 26 percent. This South African finding correlates with that by Mathews and Pardue in the United States, where 72 percent of the 100 librarian This job advertisements analyzed required at least one advanced IT skill from a list of six broad categories of advanced IT skill sets.49 At the broad level, the LIS discipline seems to have made inroads into IT disciplinary space, demonstrating its interstitial character. This study chose a more granular level in its presentation of IT skill sets, compared to Mathews and Pardue, who elected to use broad IT categories, such as systems de- 748 Information Professional or IT Professional?

1.34% 9.62% 8.97% 5.77% 5.13% 4.49% 3.85% 3.85% 3.21% 3.21% 1 20.51% 10.90% requency (%) requency

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This ocesses and practices Table 1. Table library positions academic in professional requirements skills and IT knowledge Relative IT skill Frequency sets Advanced f ALEPH (Automated Library Integrated library systems—e.g., Innovative Interface, Unicorn, SirsiDynix, Advanced computer skills (including advanced Internet skills) Expandable Program), INNOPAC (Innovative Online Public Access Catalog), and Millennium—and metadata Access Catalog), and Millennium—and metadata (Innovative Online Public INNOPAC Expandable Program), cataloging) 21, OCLC (Online (online public access catalog), MARC (machine-readable OPAC standards—e.g. description and access), Dublin Core* (resource Computer Library Center), RDA software) (e.g., DSpace open source software Digital repository Content management systems (e.g., e-journal platforms; r preservation systems such as Islandora or Fedora) preservation etc. (open multiprocessing), (Open Journal Systems), OMP publishing software—OJS Open source Digital curation and pr Digitization pr Systems development (database cr MySQL [my structured query language], PHP [hypertext preprocessor]) query language], PHP [my structured MySQL (hypertext hypertext markup languages such as HTML design/development—including skills in Web Web markup language), XML (extensible markup language), and SGML (standard generalized markup language) (standard (extensible markup language), and SGML markup language), XML platforms such as Linux, DuraSpace, Sun Solaris, SharePoint) Computer networking (including skills in software Systems application/implementation (softwar and troubleshooting hardware, systems maintenance and backup) hardware, and troubleshooting languages such as JavaScript, Java, Python, (including use of scripting and programming Programming Jaya Raju 749

3.21% 3.21% 1.28% 0.64% 0.64% 3.57% 53.57% 73.58% 32.14% 26.42% 10.71% 100% 100% requency (%) requency (%) requency (%) requency

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ds, including technical and quality standards—e.g., OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Archives OAI-PMH (Open ds, including technical and quality standards—e.g., osoft] Office skills (e.g., Word, Excel, etc.) Word, osoft] Office skills (e.g.,

otal otal Advanced IT skill sets Frequency Relative Relative IT skill Frequency sets Advanced f query language]) [structured Perl, and SQL [ Systemanalyse und SAP Acrobat, Adobe Draw/Photoshop, packages, e.g., Flash, Corel Software development] , system analysis and software Programmentwicklung IT architecture/infrastructure Total pages, as well including video, images, and Web resources, is a small set of vocabulary terms that can be used to describe Web *The Dublin Core such as books or CDs, and objects like artworks. physical resources Relative IT skillBasic Frequency sets f General computer skills/high level of proficiency Relative IT skill basic and Frequency sets advanced Combined f Advanced IT skill sets IT standar MS [Micr Basic IT skill sets Basic Internet skills T Protocol for Metadata Harvesting), CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Services), etc. for Metadata Harvesting), CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Protocol Information/IT security Graphic design E-mail skills T 750 Information Professional or IT Professional?

velopment, systems application, Web development, networking, and the like.50 At the more granular level, the high- and middle-range scoring advanced IT skill sets, in terms of frequency counts, with the odd exception, are those related to LIS discipline-specific knowledge and skills (see Table 1). These skill sets include integrated library systems and metadata standards, repositories, content management, open publishing, digital curation, and digitization. The literature makes clear that the adoption of technology is simply an extension of traditional LIS principles and practices.51 For example, Gutsche explains, “Cataloguers have been riding the technology rails for years, learning new . . 17.4. . systems and new tools for enhancing access to the collection.”52 Mathews and Pardue remind us that “librarians have been early adopters of technology” and that “technology has greatly increased . . . [their] ability to provide services.” Mathews and Pardue alsoportal say that the skill sets of librarians have been “evolving along with that technology.”53 It is natural for librarians to adopt IT skill sets to enhance traditional LIS skills of organizing and providing access to information in all formats. For example, traditional cataloging has become database management, which in the IT discipline is a core skill, demonstrating not only the LIS discipline’s interstitial character—its encroachmentpublication, into other disciplinary spaces—but also its tendency toward fractal fordistinctions in time— presenting the old as new. The notion of LIS skill sets evolving with technology as reflected in the high- to middle-range frequency distributions in Table 1 is supported by responses in the 2015 online surveyaccepted of university libraries in South Af- It is natural for librarians to rica. Senior librarians were asked what IT-related adopt IT skill sets to enhance servicesand the modern academic library needed to embrace in view of changing higher education traditional LIS skills of orga- pedagogies and the rise of eScience, large-scale nizing and providing access projects that use grid computing and collabora- edited, to information in all formats. tion via the Internet with scientists worldwide, and eResearch, the application of information copy and communication technologies to the practice of research. Of the 116 respondents to this question, 89 percent selected digitization, 77 percent chose open source publishing, 85 percent picked digital curation, and 77 percent selected research data curation. In the same online survey, in a range of weighted aver- age or mean calculationsreviewed, from 3.82 to 4.66 for an item with 115 respondents, technology know-how associated with LIS applications scored 4.64. This higher mean score indicates the importance senior librarian respondents attached to technology. On a more specific level, 87peer of 100 senior librarian respondents rated knowledge of and familiarity with LIS-relatedis systems software—for example, integrated library systems such as ALEPH [Automated Library Expandable Program], Millennium, and SirsiDynix—to be important mss.or very important. Eighty percent of 99 respondents judged creation of digital content to be important or very important, and 87 percent of 101 respondents considered cura- This tion of digital content (including metadata creation and management) to be important or very important. Eighty-three percent of 100 respondents rated research data services (including collection, metadata creation and management, and storage of data for future use) to be important or very important. Jaya Raju 751

The literature, too, offers examples of technology being used to extend traditional LIS services. For example, while repositories are relatively new to academic library services, the academic library’s traditional role in scholarly communication makes it a natural home for a repository carrying an institution’s scholarly output. However, explain Nata- sha Simons and Joanna Richardson, while repository staff may require understanding of libraries, they “may also require . . . familiarity with domains outside their immediate areas of While repositories are relatively 54 17.4. expertise.” As reflected in Table 1, repository new to academic library ser- staff may need expertise in specific repository software, metadata standards and interop- vices, the academic library’s tra- portal erability protocols, technical and quality ditional role in scholarly com- standards such as OAI-PMH (Open Archives munication makes it a natural Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting), Web hypertext markup languages such as home for a repository carrying HTML and XML, and even programming an institution’s scholarly output. languages. These provide further examples publication, of the LIS discipline incorporating skill sets for from information technology as part of its interstitial nature. In research data and other digital curation services, LIS professionals need to reach into the spaces of cognate disciplines for knowledge and skills. As Jeonghyun Kim, Edward Warga, and William Moen explain, the knowledge required includes acceptedoperating systems such as UNIX and Linux; programming and scripting languages such as Java, PHP (hypertext preprocessor), and Perl; HTML and other Web-related markupand languages; relational databases such as MySQL (my structured query language) and Oracle; desktop productivity software (for example, Flash, Corel Draw, and the like); and graphics software.55 All of these appear in Table 1 as a reflection of IT knowledge and skills gleaned from the 96 academic library job advertisements forming the empiricaledited, basis of this study. While these more technical skills (systems development, Web design, networking, systems application, programming,copy IT infrastructure, technical and quality standards, and the like) display relatively low frequency counts in Table 1, their requirement as knowledge and skill sets in a digital era academic library is not to be underestimated. Technical skills are critical to the delivery of the newer digital library services, such as repositories,reviewed, digitization, and curation of research data and other digital content. As academic librar- Technical skills are critical ies grow their digital services, and in view of the to the delivery of the newer interstitialpeer nature of the LIS discipline, future studiesis will likely reveal an increase in frequency digital library services, such counts for these technical skills in advertisements as repositories, digitization, mss.for open positions for academic library profession- and curation of research data als. Testimony to this emerging trend is the up- This ward trajectory in percentage scores when senior and other digital content. librarians were asked, in the 2015 online survey of South Africa university libraries, to rate itemized technical knowledge and skills in view of the role of the modern academic library in the creation, organization, and preservation of digital content. In terms of being rated important or very important, and with 752 Information Professional or IT Professional?

the number of respondents ranging between 98 and 101, digital library architecture and software scored 79 percent. Technical and quality standards—for example, OAI-PMH, CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Services), and the Dublin Core, a standard- ized vocabulary used to describe both Web resources and physical resources—scored 81 percent. HTML coding achieved 64 percent. Database development and management scored 73 percent. Web markup languages such as SGML and XML obtained 60 percent, and Web development and design scored 77 percent. The word clouds represented in Figures 1 and 2 capture job titles with IT-related 17.4. nomenclature and IT-related qualification requirements, respectively, that emerged from the analysis of the 96 academic library professional position advertisements. The size of each word indicates its frequency or importance. As evident in Table 1 (and discussedportal earlier), LIS-specific knowledge and skills areas show markedly significant adoption of technology to extend traditional LIS principles and practices. This process demonstrates the LIS discipline’s interstitial nature and its tendency for fractal distinctions in time, also reflected in Figure 1. Many traditional Many traditional LIS job titles LIS job titles have been adjustedpublication, to include have been adjusted to include no- nomenclature reflectingfor an IT orientation— “information librarian e-resources” and menclature reflecting an IT orien- “senior librarian: electronic resources and tation—“information librarian metadata management” are two examples. There acceptedare also some novel job titles re- e-resources” and “senior librarian: flecting the newer digital services made electronic resources and metadata possibleand by technology adoption—for ex- management” are two examples. ample, “digital services librarian,” “senior librarian: digital scholarship services,” and “scholarly communications manager.” In- terestingly, requirements for the followingedited, positions did not require a LIS qualification but were left open to applicants with a “cognate qualification” or a specified IT-related qualification: copy • assistant director: library ICT operations • senior manager: information systems and digitization • library systems coordinator • manager:reviewed, digitization and digital services. Is this perhaps the beginning of a trend of LIS employers hiring IT people for the more technicalpeer aspects of LIS services? Shongwe intimated such a trend.56 This is a matter for LIS isschools to ponder, in view of the picture looming in Figure 2. Content analysis of the 96 job advertisements revealed explicit requests for qualifications in information mss.technology, information systems, computer science, and other cognate disciplines, again a reflection of the LIS discipline’s interstitial nature. While these requirements are cur- This rently rare, they will likely grow in number, unless LIS schools decide to aggressively embed the required IT skill sets in their curriculum design and development so that their graduates can take on serious technology roles in the digital age academic library. Jaya Raju 753

17.4.

portal

Figure 1. Job titles for academic librarians with IT-related nomenclature in apublication, word cloud, in which the size of each word indicates its frequency for

accepted and

edited,

Figure 2. IT-related qualificationscopy in job advertisements for academic librarians in a word cloud, with the size of each word showing its frequency

reviewed,Conclusions and Recommendations This South African study concurs with findings from the international literature that librarianspeer in the academic library environment, which has seen perhaps the greatest impactis of technology compared to other library sectors, require IT knowledge and skills to a significant extent. In fact, based on the empirical findings of this study, from 70 mss.to 75 percent of job advertisements in this sector stipulate requirements for advanced IT skills. This incorporation by the LIS discipline of significant subsets of information This technology and related skill sets might be viewed in the context of Abbott’s Chaos of Disciplines, particularly the principle of the “interstitial character” of a discipline. Under this principle, the LIS discipline occupies spaces between disciplines and hence has an inherent tendency to be in “conflict” with other disciplinary spaces, such as IT and related fields.57 The adoption of technology in a greatly digitized higher education environment 754 Information Professional or IT Professional?

has allowed the LIS discipline to present its traditional roles of organizing and providing access to information in new forms with new competency requirements. While the systems and tools have changed, “the intent The adoption of technology in a remains the same”58—that is, organizing greatly digitized higher education and providing access to information in all formats. Hence the propensity of the environment has allowed the LIS LIS discipline for what Abbott refers to discipline to present its traditional as “fractal distinctions in time”—the 17.4. roles of organizing and providing “old” resurfacing as something new in a different guise. One can dispel any access to information in new forms uncertainty as to whether an academicportal with new competency requirements. librarian remains an information professional or is gravitating toward becoming an IT professional. Irrespective of new systems and tools in place, as well as new knowledge and skill sets that may be required, the essential roles and functions of LIS continue to be informed by thepublication, philosophy and epistemology of the discipline. While this conclusion responds,for in part at least, to the issue of the professional identity of the librarian (more research is required in this area), the question remains of IT knowledge and skills requirements for the LIS workplace and the source of these knowledge and skills. In response to this issue, this paper returns toaccepted the following questions posed at the outset: Should LIS educators partner with cognate disciplines in teaching IT skills? Should the LIS discipline stake an intellectual andclaim on this technology-driven extension of traditional skill sets and assume this role itself? Or should LIS educators leave LIS employers to hire IT people for the more technical aspects of LIS services? Responses to these questions will likely differ, and more research needs to be done in this area. How- ever, the researcher would like to suggestedited, that the LIS discipline seize the opportunity presented by its interstitial nature (rather than lamenting it) and its tendency toward fractal distinctions in time tocopy stake an intellectual claim on this technology-driven extension of its disciplinary domain. If LIS does not make this claim, other better-resourced and more established disciplines might move in. The interstitial nature of a discipline, according to the Chaos of Disciplines, allows for encroachment from both sides.59 This study has alreadyreviewed, shown early evidence of this, with LIS employers beginning to hire people with IT and not LIS qualifications for cer- IT knowledge and skill sets tain positions. LIS schools have a significant role peer to play in repositioning the LIS discipline such shouldis be taught not as stand- that the emerging library IT knowledge and skill alone or IT-serviced courses sets identified in this study and in many others mss.but should be firmly embed- are pedagogically embedded in LIS curriculum design and development. IT knowledge and skill This ded with LIS epistemology. sets should be taught not as stand-alone or IT- serviced courses but should be firmly embedded with LIS epistemology, demonstrating the intellectual claim on this broadened disciplinary space resulting from a natural evolution of the LIS discipline in response to a technology-driven information environment. By all Jaya Raju 755

means, LIS educators should work with cognate partners, as long as the LIS discipline assumes hegemony in the stewardship of this technology-driven extension of traditional LIS disciplinary space. “Competencies [and] tools may change, but the intent remains the same,”60 and this should inform the basis of our intellectual claim. After all, as emerged from the 14 focus group discussions in Partridge, Lee, and Munro’s study on knowledge, skills, and attributes in a Web 2.0 academic library, “Technology [is] a means to an end and not an end in itself.”61 17.4. Acknowledgment

The author wishes to thank the National Research Foundation (South Africa), for supportal- porting the research reported in this paper.

Jaya Raju is an associate professor and head of the Library and Information Studies Centre at the University of Cape Town, South Africa; she may be reached by e-mail at: [email protected]. publication, Notes for 1. Janie M. Mathews and Harold Pardue, “The Presence of IT Skill Sets in Librarian Position Announcements,” College & Research Libraries 70, 3 (2009): 250. 2. Betha Gutsche, “Coping with Continual Motion,” Library Journal 135, 4 (2010): 30. 3. Helen Partridge, Julie Lee, and Carrie Munro, “Becoming ‘Librarian 2.0’: The Skills, Knowledge and Attributes Required by Library andaccepted Information Science Professionals in a Web 2.0 World (and Beyond),” Library Trends 59, 1–2 (2010): 326. 4. Jacquelyn Erdman, “Education for a New Breedand of Librarian,” Reference Librarian 47, 98 (2007): 93–94. 5. Jaya Raju, “Knowledge and Skills for the Digital Era Academic Library,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 40, 2 (2014): 167–68, doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2014.02.007. 6. Mathews and Pardue, “The Presenceedited, of IT Skill Sets in Librarian Position Announcements,” 250. 7. Debra A. Riley-Huff andcopy Julia M. Rholes, “Librarians and Technology Skill Acquisition: Issues and Perspectives,” Information Technology in Libraries 30, 3 (2011): 131–33. 8. Keith F. Punch, Introduction to Social Research: Quantitative & Qualitative Approaches, 3rd ed. (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2014), 304. 9. Gert Biesta, “Pragmatism and the Philosophical Foundations of Mixed Methods Research,” in SAGE Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social & Behavioral Research, 2nd ed., ed. Abbas Tashakkorireviewed, and Charles Teddlie (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2010), 95–97. 10. John W. Creswell, Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches, 4thpeer ed. (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2014), 15–16. 11.is Raju, “Knowledge and Skills for the Digital Era Academic Library,” 163–70. 12. Andrew Abbott, Chaos of Disciplines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). 13. Laurie J. Bonnici, Manimegalai M. Subramaniam, and Kathleen Burnett, “Everything Old mss. Is New Again: The Evolution of Library and Information Science Education from LIS to iField,” Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 50, 4 (2009): 263–74. 14. Jaya Raju, “LIS Education in the Digital Age for an African Agenda,” Library Trends 64, 1 This (2015): 161–77. 15. Abbott, Chaos of Disciplines, 5, 10, 15. 16. Ibid., 5–6. 17. Heting Chu, “Library and Information Science Education in the Digital Age,” in Advances in Librarianship, Volume 32: Exploring the Digital Frontier, ed. Anne Woodsworth (Bingley, 756 Information Professional or IT Professional?

UK: Emerald, 2010), 77–111; Bonnici, Subramaniam, and Burnett, “Everything Old Is New Again,” 263; Elizabeth M. Mezick and Michael E. D. Koenig, “Education for Information Science,” Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 42, 1 (2008): 595; John Leslie King, “Identity in the I-School Movement,” ASIS&T [Association for Information Science and Technology] Bulletin, 2006, accessed September 20, 2014, https://www.asis.org/ Bulletin/Apr-06/king.html. 18. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson, eds., Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 562. 19. Abbott, Chaos of Disciplines, 17. 17.4. 20. Gutsche, “Coping with Continual Motion,” 29. 21. Mzwandile Muzi Shongwe, “The Information Technology Influence on LIS Job Descriptions in South Africa,” Information Technology for Development 21, 2 (2015): 196–204; portal Penninah S. Musangi, “Library 2.0 and the Changing Landscape of Information Services in Academic Libraries in Kenya,” International Journal of Library and Information Science 7, 10 (2015): 183–87, doi:10.5897/IJLIS2014.0492; Emmanuel E. Baro and Vara Z. Godfrey, “Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Librarian 2.0, and the Challenges for Librarians in Africa: A Review of Current Literature,” International Journal of Information Technology and Library Science 4, 1 (2015): 1–16; Riley-Huff and Rholes, “Librarians and Technology Skill Acquisition,” 129–40; Mathews and Pardue, “The Presence of IT Skill Sets in Librarianpublication, Position Announcements,” 250–57; Elisha R. T. Chiware, “Training Librariansfor for the Digital Age in African University Libraries,” paper presented at the Satellite Meeting: IT and Research in African University Libraries: Present and Future Trends, IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) World Library and Information Congress, Durban, South Africa, August 2007, accessed July 14, 2016, http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla73/ satellite1Programme-en.pdf. accepted 22. Shongwe, “The Information Technology Influence on LIS Job Descriptions in South Africa,” 201–3. 23. Mathews and Pardue, “The Presence of IT Skilland Sets in Librarian Position Announcements,” 250. 24. Ibid. 25. Shongwe, “The Information Technologyedited, Influence on LIS Job Descriptions in South Africa,” 196–204. 26. Mathews and Pardue, “The Presence of IT Skill Sets in Librarian Position Announcements,” 251. copy 27. Shongwe, “The Information Technology Influence on LIS Job Descriptions in South Africa,” 196–204; Partridge, Lee, and Munro, “Becoming ‘Librarian 2.0,’” 315–35; Goutam Biswas, “Changing Roles of Librarians in the Digital Era and the Need for Professional Skills, Efficiency and Competency,” in Proceedings of the National Seminar of the Department of Library andreviewed, Information Science and Jayakar Library, University of Pune: Library and Information Services in a Changing Era (Pune, India: Department of Information Science, University of Pune, 2009), 128–36; Chiware, “Training Librarians for the Digital Age in African Universitypeer Libraries”; Mathews and Pardue, “The Presence of IT Skill Sets in Librarian isPosition Announcements,” 250–57. 28. Mathews and Pardue, “The Presence of IT Skill Sets in Librarian Position Announcements,” 255–56. mss.29. Ibid., 256. 30. Katherine Howard, “Programming Not Required: Skills & Knowledge for the Digital This Library Environment,” Australian Academic & Research Libraries 41, 4 (2010): 271, doi:10.1080 /00048623.2010.10721480. 31. Riley-Huff and Rholes, “Librarians and echnologyT Skill Acquisition,” 129. 32. Ibid., 131, 133. 33. Mathews and Pardue, “The Presence of IT Skill Sets in Librarian Position Announcements,” 250–57. Jaya Raju 757

34. Riley-Huff and Rholes, “Librarians and echnologyT Skill Acquisition,” 140. 35. Raju, “LIS Education in the Digital Age for an African Agenda,” 163–70. 36. Ibid., 167. 37. Jaya Raju, “Core Competencies in LIS Education: Professional, Generic and Personal Competencies for the Higher Education LIS Sector,” paper presented at the World Library and Information Congress 82nd IFLA General Conference and Assembly Satellite Meeting, Dublin, Ohio, August 10, 2016, accessed September 2, 2016, http://people.ischool.illinois. edu/~weech/IFLA/Jaya%20Raju-16%20IFLA-Satellite.pdf, 7. 38. Partridge, Lee, and Munro, “Becoming ‘Librarian 2.0,’” 315, 325. 17.4. 39. Biswas, “Changing Roles of Librarians in the Digital Era and the Need for Professional Skills, Efficiency and Competency,” 135. 40. Ibid. portal 41. Chiware, “Training Librarians for the Digital Age in African University Libraries.” 42. Musangi, “Library 2.0 and the Changing Landscape of Information Services in Academic Libraries in Kenya,” 183. 43. Baro and Godfrey, “Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Librarian 2.0, and the Challenges for Librarians in Africa,” 1–16. 44. Ibid., 12–13. 45. W. Lawrence Neuman, Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitativepublication, Approaches, 6th ed. (Boston: Pearson, 2006), 44. for 46. Verity Orme, “You Will Be . . . : A Study of Job Advertisements to Determine Employers’ Requirements for LIS Professionals in the UK in 2007,” Library Review 57, 8 (2008): 620, 623, doi:10.1108/00242530810899595. 47. Raju, “Core Competencies in LIS Education.” 48. Susan Myburgh and Anna Maria Tammaro, Exploringaccepted Education for Digital Librarians: Meaning, Modes and Models (Oxford: Chandos, 2013), 197. 49. Mathews and Pardue, “The Presence of IT Skill Sets in Librarian Position Announcements,” 255–56. and 50. Ibid., 255. 51. Riley-Huff and Rholes, “Librarians and echnologyT Skill Acquisition,” 129–40; Gutsche, “Coping with Continual Motion,”edited, 28–31; Mathews and Pardue, “The Presence of IT Skill Sets in Librarian Position Announcements,” 250–57. 52. Gutsche, “Coping with Continual Motion,” 30. 53. Mathews and Pardue, “Thecopy Presence of IT Skill Sets in Librarian Position Announcements,” 256. 54. Natasha Simons and Joanna Richardson, “New Roles, New Responsibilities: Examining Training Needs of Repository Staff,” Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication 1, 2 (2012): 3, doi:10.7710/2162-3309.1051. 55. Jeonghyunreviewed, Kim, Edwar d Warga, and William Moen, “Competencies Required for Digital Curation: An Analysis of Job Advertisements,” International Journal of Digital Curation 8, 1 (2013): 74, doi:10.2218/ijdc.v8i1.242. 56. Shongwe,peer “The Information Technology Influence on LIS Job Descriptions in South Africa,” is 201, 203. 57. Abbott, Chaos of Disciplines. 58. Gutsche, “Coping with Continual Motion,” 30. mss.59. Abbott, Chaos of Disciplines, 17. 59. Raju, “LIS Education in the Digital Age for an African Agenda,” 161–77. This 60. Gutsche, “Coping with Continual Motion,” 30. 61. Partridge, Lee, and Munro, “Becoming ‘Librarian 2.0,’” 315, 325. 17.4.

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