Our+Profession

Our Profession

__[|ALA Code of Ethics]__

[|ALA Core Values]

[|ALA Librarian Toolkits]


 * What defines a Profession?**

Generally: any middle class occupational group characterized by claims to a high level of technical and intellectual expertise, autonomy, and commitment to public service.


 * Information Sciences (Librarianship) as a Profession**

A Professional Model (culled from 510 notes): 1. A systematic body of theory (not really) 2. A prescribed educational period (yes) 3. Relevance to basic social values (yes) 4. Sanction of the community/autonomy (no) 5. A service motivation/ethic (yes) 6. A sense of community within the profession (sort of) 7. A sense of commitment to the profession (maybe) 8. A code of ethics or professional responsibility (yes)

The field has: professional journals and associations Theory vs. Practice (Education v. Training)


 * Core Aspects of the Work of the Information Professional**

Beginning assumptions: Info Professionals are concerned with:
 * information will continue to grow
 * as cost of IT goes down, information volume and availability will rise
 * greater number of information processing functions handled with similar technologies
 * Significance of information will increase, resulting in: growing societal dependence, being seen as something required for success in all ventures, multiplying ethical issues
 * diversification/integration of information professionals (diversification: new occupations; integration: of IT, skills, values, ethics)
 * Information control
 * Access to information for clients
 * Knowing the nature and dynamics of information
 * Knowing the value of information to persons and society

Info Prof.s add value to information objects they did not create. (How? textual collation, copying, analysis, organizing for retrieval...)

Definitions of information science (Tayor 1963): "Information Science is the science that investigates the properties and behavior of information, the forces governing the flow of information, and the means of processing information for optimum accessibility and usabililty." "The processes include the origination, dissemination, collection, organiztion, storage, retrieval, interpretation, and use of information."