Engaging with our future: the role of educators, practitioners, professional associations and employing organisations in the co-creation of information professionals^*

* This paper has been double-blind peer reviewed to meet the Department of Higher Education’s Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) requirements.

Abstract

This article considers the shared role of library and information studies (LIS) educators, practitioners, employing organisations and the professional associations in the development of LIS graduates and new professionals. The application of a passion-based approach to student learning, and the encouragement of ‘scholarly citizenship’ in students, helps to develop graduates who are already engaged with, passionate about and committed to the profession they are about to enter. However, new professionals need to be further enculturated into the profession and practice of LIS and nurtured in order for their passion to be sustained and good professional and organisational ‘citizenship’ developed. Passion and engagement are closely connected with good citizenship in the academy, workplace and profession where citizenship is a willingness to contribute beyond the usual requirements of participation, employment or membership. This article first describes why people enter the information professions and then presents a variety of strategies for academic programs and the information profession to develop the values of passion, engagement and citizenship in new professionals.

Keywords:

• Passion-based learning
• LIS education
• communities of practice
• professional citizenship
• organisational citizenship

Implications for best practice

•	Practitioners who are passionate about their practice are necessary for the sustainability of the information professions.
•	Passionate practitioners will be better able to sustain their own careers.
•	Library and information studies (LIS) academics, together with information practitioners and the professional associations, can enculturate students into the information professions prior to graduation to enhance engagement with it.
•	Employing organisations need to nurture and develop new practitioners early in their careers.
•	Good citizenship can be developed in students (scholarly citizenship) and new professionals (organisational and professional citizenship) for the benefit of the information professions.

Introduction

In 2012 Reynolds, Welch and Carroll discussed the need for libraries of all types and in all sectors to employ and nurture information professionals who are passionate, engaged contributors to their profession and to society. Reynolds, Welch, and Carroll (2012) pointed out that the library and information professions do not generally offer the salaries or prestige associated with some other professional groups and that encouraging a career choice based on a willingness to contribute to society and satisfaction from doing so, rather than salary, provides a positive challenge for library and information studies (LIS) educators, practitioners and the professional association. The LIS professions need to recruit committed graduates who are not only knowledgeable and skilled but who are also actively engaged with the professions and able to understand and articulate the value of their chosen professions to the wider community. Beyond this, students should be introduced to the concept of being good professional and organisational ‘citizens’. To sustain such engagement, championing of the profession and citizenship into the future, library and information professionals – educators, practitioners and the professional associations – must be prepared to nurture students and guide them in their effective transition from the academy to the workforce.

This article demonstrates how all parties can facilitate this nurturing through teaching and work practices and programmes which focus on ‘learning to be’ professionals, as well as ‘learning to do’ the job (Brown & Adler, 2008) and create good professional citizens in the process. ‘Learning to do’ includes acquiring the skills necessary to perform tasks as required. ‘Learning to be’ is the progressive acquisition of the attributes of a professional and enculturation into the profession. The article asserts that in addition to developing essential skills and understanding the profession, students can transition from being good ‘scholarly citizens’ in the academy, that is, supportive of academics and peers in learning and teaching, to contributing to both the profession and employing organisation, beyond the requirements of a job description, as good professional and organisational ‘citizens’.

As LIS educators, we are passionate about our teaching practice and about the information professions of which we are also members. As academics, we aim to be good academic citizens, contributing to academic life through our willingness to act as peer reviewers, organise conferences, examine theses, speak publicly, serve on committees and otherwise provide our expertise outside our more visible and accountable roles in academia. As researchers, we are interested in exploring ways of developing ‘passion’ and good ‘citizenship’ in our students and then applying our findings to our own pedagogy and practice. We have the dual objective to produce work-ready graduates who are equipped with the necessary industry skills and attributes and to imbue in graduates the desire to develop a connectedness and responsibility to, and deep engagement with, their new profession even before they actually enter it. Academics, current practitioners and employers, and the professional associations need to work collaboratively to co-create these skilled and passionate practitioners who will contribute to the profession and organisations beyond their paid employment. Good professional and organisational ‘citizens’ will benefit their employing organisations, society and the profession and also better counteract the stereotypical characteristics of selfishness and self-interest so often directed at generations X and Y as they enter the workforce (Mackay, 2014).

Employment motivations

Insights into the motivating factors for people entering the profession of librarianship were provided in response to a 2012 statement published by Forbes.com (Smith, 2012). The Forbes article suggested that master’s degrees in library and information science were the worst for employment in the United States due to ‘the low pay rank and estimated growth’. The then President of the American Library Association, Maureen Sullivan, immediately issued a statement to counter ‘the profit-centered, corporation-based measures valued by Forbes’, arguing that remuneration and industry growth were not the only reasons for selecting further study or a career. She went on to state that for many librarians, the underlying motivation was job satisfaction, ‘derived from the opportunity to make a significant difference in the lives of others’ (Sullivan, 2012). American LIS graduates themselves responded to the Forbes findings indicating that the primary reason they had chosen a career which ‘focussed on delivering public service rather than becoming wealthy’ was ‘high levels of career satisfaction’ (Bertot, Jaeger, & Sarin, 2012).

In Australia, just prior to the Forbes ‘best and worst master’s degrees’ rankings, the motivations of young people in choosing careers were explored in a study commissioned by the Australian Association for Certified Practicing Accountants (CPAs) (CoreData, 2012). The CPA study investigated motivating factors in the choice of employment for employees between the ages of 18 and 30. Remuneration rated very low for this age group, with only 17.4% of respondents regarding a good salary as the chief motivating factor, and almost double that number (32%) claiming that ‘passion’ for what they were doing was the single most important element in their career choice. Passion for their work was closely followed by a desire for positive work-life balance. The chief executive of the association for CPAs, Alex Malley, considered that this ‘desire to choose a career based on what they were passionate about was a positive sign for the future’ (CoreData, 2012). The information professions also need passionate graduates who will continue to develop their passion in order to sustain – and actively promote – our rapidly changing industry in the uncertain years ahead, and this is a challenge to be met by both LIS educators and the wider profession. How can this be achieved? Passion-based learning, commencing in the academy and continuing in the workplace, can assist in a successful transition from student to new practitioner to professional to address the challenges of the future.

Passion-based learning

John Dewey’s concept of students engaging in productive enquiry and experiential learning based on real-world understandings provides a foundation for passion-based learning. Productive enquiry is where the learners themselves determine what is needed in their individualised learning and assumes that students will therefore be more actively engaged with their learning (Cook & Brown, 1999; Dewey, 1915). Common concepts associated with passion-based learning include students engaging with relevant and important ideas, connection to real-world problems and projects, student-driven learning and the need for enrichment and connection. Importantly, Maiers and Sandvold (2011) suggest that the driver for this approach to curriculum design and thinking by educators is the desire to remove education from the outcome-driven, standards-based, data-oriented methods which appear to be prevalent in education from primary school to postgraduate programs in universities.

‘Learning to be rather than learning to do’

John Seely Brown (2005), educator and innovator, applies the concept of passion-based learning to the tertiary education setting. He suggests that educators have new reasons and new means for engaging learners with the advent of new technologies, the expansion of knowledge and changes in the nature of work. Brown combines the theory of Jean Lave’s situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and Etienne Wenger’s concept of communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) to link curriculum design and student participation to professional practice and enculturation. Through engagement with real-world situations, students experience ‘learning to be’ as well as ‘learning to do’ (Brown & Adler, 2008). The idea of enculturation can be particularly effective as a tool in education and learning for professions where both skills (‘learning to do’) and engagement (‘learning to be’) are desirable for, if not central to, professional practice, professions such as librarianship and associated activities.

Brown’s idea of professional education, aimed at ‘learning to be’ in conjunction with ‘learning to do’, offers a way forward for LIS education both in the academy and as part of lifelong learning for practitioners. Brown suggests that there are two major vehicles for enhancing ‘learning to be’ as an outcome of passion-based learning in a changing educational landscape: access to information through the Internet, and the development of social networking tools (Brown & Adler, 2008). Brown’s (2005) ideas are reinforced by Woessner (2012) who suggests that the development of digital literacy and of a ‘participatory culture’ foster a passion for learning and participation. Such a learning style and method, based on passion and engagement with both learning and other learners and professionals through technology, necessarily involves the practice of lifelong learning through digital literacy, a concept central to both the education and role of the information professional.

To enable the educational ideas of people such as Brown (2005) and Woessner (2012) to be realised, both the latest technology and social networking tools should be incorporated into LIS education. This in turn will help to create the practitioners required for the sustainability of libraries in the twenty-first century. To further develop these concepts, and to produce graduates already engaged with their profession as they emerge from the academy, Lave’s concept of ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991) can also be employed in LIS courses of study. Students can be involved in relevant practitioner-driven communities of practice as part of their course of study (as participants or observers), and thus be given the opportunity to engage with, contribute to, and be socialised into, the profession while still studying (Reynolds et al., 2012).

Wenger (1998) defines a community of practice (CoP) as a ‘group of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly’, usually electronically. Students can be involved in their own internal community of practice in the academy, and also participate in an existing community of practice, external to the classroom. Through these activities, it is believed students will begin to develop an understanding of the norms, practices and issues of their new profession and practice them as part of their formal education while learning to contribute to a group activity. This is much as traditional apprentices acquire not only the skills of their trade, but the culture and traditions of their field under the ‘watchful eye of master’ as suggested by Lave and Wenger (1991). The presence of practitioners in the classroom (physically or virtually) further enhances student engagement with the profession and awareness of the issues and activities before they actually enter it as practitioners in their own right.

‘A hybrid model of learning’

Brown asks readers of his paper ‘New learning environments for the 21st century’ to

Imagine a hybrid model of learning, where we combine the power of passion based participation in niche communities of practice with a limited core curriculum for teaching the rigorous thinking and argumentation specific to that field. Designing such a curriculum would require ‘elegant minimalism’. (Brown, 2005)

This is precisely what is attempted by the authors of this paper in the design of courses preparing information professionals for the future: a carefully considered field of study, with a curriculum delivered by academics who are knowledgeable, passionate about and engaged with the profession themselves. Classroom learning is directly linked to the profession through a number of paths including speakers, an external community of practice and an industry placement in order to ‘co-create’ twenty-first century information professionals. This approach is underpinned by the belief that students will more fully engage if the curriculum also provides a sense of wider social and historical forces, understanding of the value and role of information agencies and information workers, and immersion in the discourse surrounding seminal works, critical issues and core values which have shaped the industry and the profession.

As LIS educators in the higher education sector, we believe that these ideas can be used as building blocks for developing our students as passionate practitioners and good citizens of their profession once they move beyond the classroom into employment. Student learning should include consideration and investigation of the most recent concepts, ideas and activities occurring in the information landscape, according to personal interests; practicing information professionals should be invited into the classroom – face-to face or virtually – to expose students to real-world issues; students should be provided with opportunities to undertake a professional placement and attend professional events; and students should share their learning and reflections through a community of practice, encouraging good scholarly citizenship.

Participation in an internal community of practice provides opportunities for students to self-reflect, to question, to pursue and share ideas and issues which inspire and interest them, and to support each other. Students can also monitor and/or engage with an external community of practice within the information profession, and thus interact with practitioners, either directly or peripherally, who are demonstrating passion for the profession and good citizenship through their own engagement with their professional community. Enculturation into a community of practice is important to promote professional involvement, and the use of CoPs in their course of study is a strategy designed to facilitate students’ continued involvement with communities of practice once they enter the profession. Hopefully, the new graduates will not only be capable practitioners but also passionate ones who can work independently, think critically, communicate and collaborate effectively and creatively, and contribute to their organisation and community as good professional and organisational citizens. However, once these new practitioners enter the workplace, consideration needs to be given to strategies and practices of the organisation and the profession which will engage, sustain and support the ongoing development and retention of these new information professionals. This in turn will contribute to the sustainability of the profession itself.

Maintaining the passion, developing good citizenship

Upon entering the workplace, the newly minted professional is generally confronted with a demanding workload, new and often burdensome bureaucratic and management requirements, as well as the everyday realities of the workplace. Academics, practitioners and professional associations must seek ways to ease the transition from the academy to practice and to continue to engage new professionals with the profession as they commence work in this new, and often overwhelming, environment. Opportunities must be provided in the workplace to socialise them into both the organisation and the profession.

While socialisation of students into the profession can be introduced and developed to some degree in the classroom, using approaches such as passion-based learning and communities of practice, much of the pre-service socialisation achieved can be lost in the move to the workplace if strategies to enhance it are not maintained. Lockwood (2006, adapted from Chao, O’Leary-Kelly, Wolf, Klein, & Gardner, 1994), outlines a number of features for successful induction and socialisation of new professionals (Table 1) and suggests that a focus on purely practical or procedural aspects of the process may be insufficient for this transition is to be successful.

Table 1. Organisational socialisation.

Socialisation content
Performance proficiency	Learning and mastering the knowledge, skills and abilities to perform the required work task
People	Establishing successful and satisfying work relationships with organisational members
Politics	Gaining information regarding formal and informal work relationships and power structures
Language	Understanding the profession’s technical language as well as acronyms, slang and jargon unique to the organisation
Organisational goals and values	Understanding the rules or principles that maintain the integrity of the organisation
History	Learning the organisation’s traditions, customs, myths, personal background of other members

Source: Lockwood (2006) adapted from Chao et al. (1994).

Lockwood (in Table 1) indicates that successful socialisation, into the profession and employing organisation, is a complex mix of both ‘learning to do’, including understanding of the language of a profession and organisation and mastery of its knowledge and skills, and ‘learning to be’ through understanding the history, traditions, customs and principles of an organisation or profession. Developing a more comprehensive and contextualised proficiency and understanding in new practitioners, and providing supporting strategies to encourage organisational and professional socialisation, and good citizenship in the process, is ideally suited to collaborations between university programs, the workplace and the professional associations.

Supporting and developing the emergent professional, and nurturing scholarly, organisational and professional citizenship, should be viewed holistically with academics, employers and the profession acting in concert. Passion for the profession which has been seeded in the classroom needs to be actively and consciously cultivated within the workplace and by the wider profession. If not carefully tended, the passion and engagement nurtured within the academy by educators and associated professionals may be lost in the transition from the academy to the workplace as new practitioners are faced with the reality of everyday practice and its demands. Worse, new professionals may be disheartened by what Joseph Janes has called the ‘toxic middle’; that is, those experienced practitioners who ‘block and dodge and defer and discourage’ those around them (Janes, 2013).

Research into the orientation strategies often used in LIS workplaces indicates apparent gaps in how new practitioners are socialised (Ladenson, Mayers, & Hyslop, 2011) and suggests that programs developed to integrate new professionals focus simply on ‘performance proficiency’, language and even ‘politics’ (Chao et al., 1994). According to Ladenson et al. (2011), in a survey of socialisation programmes in academic libraries, the induction of new practitioners into that sector often appears to focus on familiarisation with the processes and procedures of the individual workplace, discussion of salary or benefits and completing necessary paperwork. Despite some mentoring and buddy programmes, the most commonly employed formal strategies identified by Ladenson et al. (2011) include orientation sessions, provision of checklists and job shadowing. This is not surprising given the imperative for a new practitioner to rapidly acquire practical workplace skills and understandings in order to meet the pressures for particular outcomes to be achieved by the employer. However, such socialisation programmes only address some immediate concerns in the practical transition from student to employee and may not cater for long-term professional and personal growth or develop good organisational and professional citizens. The anticipatory socialisation which was introduced in the classroom, with the assistance of invited professionals, can seem remote from the immediacy of everyday needs and thus irrelevant to the workplace, resulting in gaps in the professional socialisation components defined as desirable by Chao et al. (1994).

Additionally, induction strategies limited to individual workplace cultures often do not encourage a wider view of the industry and the more reflective, inspirational and contributory or engaging aspects of it as introduced in the classroom. Practitioners and professional bodies need to consider approaches which, as asserted by Bosch, Ramachandran, Luevano and Wakiji, ensure that the next generation of leaders have ‘the tools and support to move seamlessly into the fabric of the organization and to flourish professionally’ (2010). The professional industry associations can act as a link between educators, graduates and more experienced professionals, providing a network which will sustain the new professional in the future. Students can be introduced to their professional associations in the classroom and participate in activities through initiatives such as events, seminars and conferences. For example, the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) Students and New Graduates group ‘aims to facilitate networking for the new generation of information professionals, provide a forum for the discussion of issues relevant to new professionals, organise meetings and training specifically relevant to students and new graduates and facilitate the introduction of new graduates into the wider ALIA community’ (Australian Library & Information Association [ALIA], 2013). ALIA also supports continuing education through professional development opportunities such as the ALIA PD Scheme (https://membership.alia.org.au/pdinfo/alia-pd-scheme) which aims to support individual professional practice needs.

Other activities may provide opportunities for transition into the workforce over a longer term. According to Ladenson et al. (2011), very few new practitioners were introduced to the profession through more formal and potentially more supportive strategies such as internships, professional fellowships or practitioner residency programmes. Programmes such as these, which lengthen and formalise the transition process from academy to practise, may offer opportunities for greater collaboration between LIS academics, their students and the workplace, and provide a more comprehensive socialisation experience for the new practitioner while retaining an engagement with theoretical foundations through continuing links with educators.

Workplace and professional orientation needs to include consideration of the longer term objectives of embedding passion for, and engagement with, the job and the profession. This would help new professionals to continue ‘learning to be’ in conjunction with ‘learning to do’, just as occurs during the academic phase of the professional’s development and encourage good professional citizenship. The workplace can also provide opportunities to model and nurture organisational citizenship, defined by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine and Bachrach as including ‘helping behaviour’, ‘individual initiative’ and ‘self-development’ (2000).

Good citizenship

‘Citizenship’ is defined by The Macquarie Dictionary as ‘the status of a citizen, with its rights and duties’ where a citizen is ‘a member, native or naturalised, of a state or nation’ (2013). Recently the issue of ‘academic citizenship’ has been paid some attention as fears for its sustainability escalate in an increasingly individualistic university environment (Havergal, 2015; Macfarlane, 2007a, 2007b; Thompson, Constantineau, & Fallis, 2006). Academic citizenship can be considered as ‘voluntary, often invisible, activity to sustain academic culture for its own sake, which brings benefits to a wider group than oneself or even one’s department’ (Power, 2014). The activities referred to include academics acting as external examiners, peer reviewers, mentors, guest speakers, ‘critical friends’, etc. within the academic community where other academics are the citizens. Students also have a community within the academy, where they and educators are the citizens and support of the community is provided through a willingness to contribute to classroom activities and to mentoring each other.

We refer to ‘professional and organisational citizenship’ similarly, where information professionals demonstrate good citizenship through their willingness to provide service to the profession and employing organisation, beyond their paid employment or membership fees, for the good of the profession, employers and society. Similar to the academic environment, there is a ‘time burden’ (Havergal, 2015) and no financial recompense for outside service, but it can be considered a privilege to contribute and engage for the general good. Service can be provided through volunteering for committees and administrative roles, mentoring, leadership, advocacy, sharing knowledge, participation in activities and discussions. Farh, Earley, and Lin (1997) highlight citizenship in non-Western workplaces where characteristics such as altruism towards colleagues, conscientiousness and impersonal harmony are particularly valued. Such model citizenship needs to be encouraged by mentoring new graduates in how to be engaged with the profession and their own organisations, and by providing opportunities for service and intrinsic rewards (such as respect and recognition) for such activities.

In order to be a good citizen, the new professional needs to understand decision-making processes in their organisations, have a sense of responsibility and loyalty to and guardianship of the profession, other professionals (described by Macfarlane (2007b, p. 65) as ‘collegial virtue’), local community and society, and develop skills for such involvement within their communities. The ability to contribute in such ways is enhanced by the use of technology to do so, including through communities of practice. Good professional and organisational citizens are passionate about their work and engaged with the profession.

Conclusion

How can academics, practitioners and professional associations work together to socialise new graduates and assist them to flourish in the profession as employees and professional members? The profession as a whole needs to share a common aim and responsibility for fostering the continued professional journey which commenced in the academy and to collaborate in encouraging continuing professional development (Levine, 2010; Sunal & Haas, 2008).

Academics and professionals can perhaps, as a first step, model a seamless integration of learning and practice for the transitioning professional through their own engagement with each other. Academic programmes which include willing guest speakers from industry and the professional associations, visits to workplaces, placements hosted by the profession and encouragement of participation in professional events go some way to integrating and balancing ‘learning to be’ and ‘learning to do’. A commitment to support, engage and collaborate with each other in research, teaching and practice provides an exemplar of good citizenship and illustrates support and ongoing commitment to both theory and practice. To do this successfully, there needs to be a close alignment of objectives and collaborative engagement between all those involved. This would assist new practitioners to not only continue to develop the skills required in the workplace, but also to embed ‘common convictions and beliefs about what is important or of value’ as promulgated by Sunal and Haas in their discussion of socialising for citizenship (2008).

Academics who contribute research to the body of knowledge underpinning the industry and education are also required to have an outward view from the academy and be fully engaged with the profession. Academic programmes have a responsibility to ensure that LIS students have the strategies in place, not just to perform the vocational aspects of their profession, but to adapt intellectually to a variety of workplaces and wider issues of their profession. To do this, students require a deep understanding of the industry, its history, common goals and principles, and contemporary manifestations of it. Employers also need to play their part in supporting and accommodating professional and personal growth by identifying and facilitating opportunities for new professionals to engage with the workplace, encouraging and rewarding ongoing participation in such opportunities and the professional associations. Longer term programmes such as traineeships, fellowships and ongoing mentoring initiated by employers and supported by academics may provide further opportunities for drawing on ‘learning to be’ and ‘learning to do’ and the development of good citizenship in the workplace and profession.

Working in the information sector can give job satisfaction, provide the rewards of public service and satisfy the desire for a career which engenders passion, as flagged by both the Australian CPA report and American librarians’ responses to the Forbes findings. Not only must students learn the skills and obtain knowledge relevant to the information professions, they must also be encouraged to develop a sense of belonging to a profession that has a long tradition and a deep sense of place in society, and a wish to contribute to it. This can be best achieved as a co-creation, with academics, students, professional associations and practitioners all working together for the sustainability of the profession and for the benefit of society.

Notes on contributors

Sue Reynolds is a senior lecturer in Information Management at RMIT University, Melbourne. She was awarded the American Library Association’s Phyllis Dain Library History Dissertation Award for her doctoral thesis which has since been published as Books for the Profession: The Library of the Supreme Court of Victoria (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2013). Sue commenced her professional career as a teacher-librarian and has also worked as an editor and a VET educator and has taught at Can Tho and Thai Nguyen Universities in Vietnam.

Mary Carroll is a senior lecturer and Course Director in the School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University. Mary was previously an Early Career Research Fellow at RMIT University and a teacher of Library Studies at Victoria University. Mary’s research has focussed on the history of libraries and information organisation and the history of education for the information professions. In 2012/2013, Mary conducted the Public Spaces-Private Places: Private RTOs and Information Infrastructure research project funded by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research.

Bernadette Welch is a lecturer in the School of Business IT and Logistics at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Her teaching and research interests include information provision, reference services, education for LIS, particularly in the development of curriculum for online delivery, and readers’ advisory for young adults. She was an associate editor of the recently ceased journal Viewpoint: On books for young adults and has been involved in a number of projects to deliver LIS training to various university libraries in Vietnam.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

* This paper has been double-blind peer reviewed to meet the Department of Higher Education’s Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) requirements.