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Introduction
Information is literally at the fingertips of users 24 hours a day, seven days a week, thanks to search engines such as Google and an array and expansion of mobile devices and the size and complexity of datasets. Because of this, training in the traditional library science profession is being transformed. At the heart of these changes is the professional mission and commitment of library and information science (LIS) programs to train library science students to be responsive to current needs and better prepared for the workplace upon graduation. This paper presents viewpoints on the current literature to put a global perspective on the changes facing and transforming LIS education.
For the past 20 years, LIS programs around the world have been reviewing and rethinking training for their students. While some transformations and changes were nominal, other efforts to restructure LIS curricula and instruction have been substantial. More importantly, as Kaur stated, “LIS educators throughout the world have a great deal to learn from each other” (Kaur, 2015a).
Paths to change
Flexibility with LIS program change varies from country to country and three Eurasian countries, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Turkey, approached change through different paths, primarily due to government agencies and ministries dictating program change. For example, after receiving their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the Ukraine and Azerbaijan revisited their LIS programs. What made their tasks different from other countries was that program approval had to be reviewed and approved through their countries’ ministries.
While the task was lengthy, by the time they were finished, LIS programs in the Ukraine were offering new courses related to information-seeking behavior, information architecture, structuring of information, network administration and metadata design (Chukanova, 2015).
Azerbaijan was also calling for change and while library science education had been upgraded to independent university department status in 1962 (Kuzmin, 2008), career directions for majors in Azerbaijain included static library science training that remained limited to positions such as bibliographer, collection management and publishing/editing (Sharma, 2012). What has continued, to some extent, is that many state libraries and librarians throughout the country are still working with standards applied in Soviet times and there is a gap between modern librarianship education and matching modern information needs, such as information engineering and...