In a recent post on “My Perfect Program“, I mentioned that our library school apparently used to have nine required courses (and presumably six electives) which is the exact opposite of what we have now.
I don't know what the required courses used to be – I think collections development and a technology one called “systems” were two of them. I'm not sure what the other one was but that got me thinking about which courses I would want to be required if all students had to take nine classes instead of six.
Here are the six required classes we currently have:
501 – Perspectives on Library Science
502 – Cataloguing
503 – Reference
504 – Research
505 – Technology
506 – Management
Most of the classes I'm suggesting as other courses that should be required are already offered as electives with their own numbers but for convenience, I'm just going to continue the existing numbering scheme:
507 – Collection Development
508 – “Library Skills” (as Jess Nevins defines this course)
509 – History of Libraries
Oh and why not? Here's a suggestion for a tenth required course. Why not have a companion to 501 – Perspectives on Library Science called 510 – Issues in Library Science. To be really different, the department could require this to be a course you take at the end of your program instead of the start and it could cover topics such as Advocacy, Leadership, Information Ethics and Social Justice.
While I'm at it, I would also substantially revise the 505 course to be more of a technology issues/current technologies course than the fundamentals course that it is right now. Someone talking about the the problems with this courses compared it to when library schools took “typing” off their list of requirements. I think today, students should be expected to come in to library school with a certain basic level of computer skills and if they don't have them, the onus should be on them to obtain those skills before they arrive. (Is this a barrier to access? Am I being elitist?)
(Off-topic but Go Democrats Go!)
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