DEVELOPMENTS IN INFORMATION EDUCATION AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOLS OF LIBRARIANSHIP AND INFORMATION STUDIES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

Abstract

As a follow‐up to a study carried out in 1984 of the constraints upon curriculum development in Schools of Librarianship and Information Science (SLIS), the British Library Research and Development Department (BLR&DD) commissioned a survey of other types of ‘information education’ in the United Kingdom. It was hoped, thereby, to recognise new challenges and opportunities for SLIS and whether serious competition was to be expected from other educational provision. There were some difficulties in recognising and categorising information education programmes. Most were found to be technology‐based with little interest in the user dimension of information provision. Those with such an interest had problems in securing resource provision. SLIS did not appear to be seriously threatened by other information education provision in their traditional roles as providers of personnel for institutionally based information activities. Credibility as providers of information technology‐based programmes required SLIS to develop radically different course programmes with substantial additional resourcing. The poor public image of library and information work and the lack of coherent measures to tackle this imply that SLIS will continue to have difficulty in securing the resource base to compete effectively in the information technology field.

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