Curating Information & Making Sense of Data Is a Key Skill for the Future [Research]

Via Scoop.it – Future Trends in Libraries

Excellent scoop on Scoop.it by Future Trends in Libraries curated by nickcarman. He states:

Extremely valuable skills for Information Professionals of the future… The Institute for the Future and the University of Phoenix have teamed up to produce, this past spring, an interesting report entitled Future Work Skills 2020.   By looking at the set of emerging skills that this research identifies as vital for future workers, I can’t avoid but recognize the very skillset needed by any professional curator or newsmaster.   It should only come as a limited surprise to realize that in an information economy, the most valuable skills are those that can harness that primary resource, “information”, in new, and immediately useful ways.   And being the nature of information like water, which can adapt and flow depending on context, the task of the curator is one of seeing beyond the water, to the unique rare fish swimming through it.  The curator’s key talent being the one of recognizing that depending on who you are fishing for, the kind of fish you and other curators could see within the same water pool, may be very different.     

Here the skills that information-fishermen of the future will need the most:   1) Sense-making: ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed;   2) Social intelligence: ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions;   3) Novel and adaptive thinking: proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rule-based;   4) Cross-cultural competency: ability to operate in different cultural settings;   5) Computational thinking: ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning;   6) New media literacy: ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communication;   7) Transdisciplinarity: literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines;   8) Design mindset: ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes;   9) Cognitive load management: ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques;   10) Virtual collaboration: ability to work productively, drive engagement, and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team.

Executive Summary of the Report

Download a PDF copy of Future Work Skills 2020

Via apolloresearchinstitute.com

Teacher librarians as ‘information dietitians’

I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of this book, The Information Diet when it is released in early January 2012.

Love the subtitle ‘A Case for Conscious Consumption’. The book blurb states: “Healthy information consumption habits are about more than productivity and efficiency. They’re about your personal health, and the health of society. Just as junk food can lead to obesity, junk information can lead to new forms of ignorance. The Information Diet provides a framework for consuming information in a healthy way, by showing you what to look for, what to avoid, and how to be selective.

With this book, you’ll learn:

• The relationship between power, authority, and information since the dawn of the first major information-technology boom
• How people react to information consumption, according to cognitive science and neuroscience findings
• How the new, information-abundant society is suffering consequences from poor information consumption habits
• What constitutes a healthy information diet and how you can get started”

I really like the way ‘information’ is being explored here as part of a person’s healthy lifestyle, and people being empowered by the ‘information choices’ they make to inform their lives.

Should we be presenting teacher librarians as information dietitians in 2012?

Concluding comments from Roy and others at the close of Library & Info Week

May 31 saw the close of another week of library advocacy in Australia hosted by the Australian Library & Information Association (ALIA). The theme for Library and Information Week 2009 was Libraries your passport to discovery!, which was a great opportunity for our information profession to promote the value of libraries in today’s society. I noticed Sue Hutley‘s (Executive Director, ALIA) statement that “libraries offer every Australian a chance to discover, access and connect to a much wider world – and in these tough economic times, it’s a lot cheaper too!”, was a message that resonated through a number of comments in the media this week, including those of Robert McEntyre (Public Libraries NSW Metropolitan Association Executive Director) in the Herald article Book now: libraries are top shelf in family attractions by Rachel Browne (on May 31).

It was also great to see  the words of Roy Crotty (fellow studentslearn blogger, President of ASLANSW and Associate Lecturer with us at the School of Information Studies at Charles Sturt University – love the concluding quote in the article Roy:

“If anything, the digital era has made a teacher librarian’s job even more relevant.”

The ALIA media release highlights the cultural, educational and economic benefits to society afforded by libraries and information agencies, noting that each year “Australia’s 1,500 public libraries lend over 178 million items to 12 million registered borrowers” which is over half of Australia’s population. Additional figures quoted by Sue Huntley provide the public with an idea of the breadth of library services across the nation including “approximately 9,000 school libraries, 42 university libraries, 387 TAFE campus libraries, and thousands of health libraries, law libraries and other special libraries.” In addition, the Herald article Students can borrow to boost chances outlining public libraries’ support of school children’s reading habits through the provision of multiple copies of books on the Premier’s Challenge reading list each year, demonstrates how public libraries are ‘switched on’ to the needs of kids and in supporting school libraries to resource public programs that can sometimes be beyond the capabilities of an individual school library’s budget. 

Sherman Young’s article Is the book dead? published on ABC’s Unleashed on May 26 and National Simultaneous Storytime on May 27 capped off a busy week for libraries, authors, publishers and booksellers in promoting the value of libraries, books, reading and literacy for all Australians.

An interesting antidote to the good work presented in the media this past week about the value of libraries in Australia, can be found in ABC’s Unleashed article The vulgar modernisation of our libraries (published at the end of April) is you missed it. Love to hear your feedback on any or all of the above!

Shh, this is a digital library

This is a link to an article in the Times Online e-publication about what it means to be a librarian in this modern age. One of the people mentioned, Dr Gaynor Eyre, was member of the CSU staff for 5 years. I am so pleased I no longer have to put my hair in a tightly twisted bun.

“Once upon a time a love of books and reading was considered a key requirement for an aspiring librarian. Today, with the advent of digitalisation and moves towards the virtual library, such an interest is no longer enough. Librarians must master sophisticated IT and information management skills as well as the traditional techniques.

Bookishness has gone – along with the old stereotype of stern shushes from a bluestocking in a tweed skirt and spectacles with her hair in a tightly twisted bun.”

Read more at:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/article6154172.ece

Librarian’s Manifesto

As teacher librarians, what do we believe our role to be?  Are we teachers, librarians, somewhere in between or something else?  We know what many of our teaching colleagues may think.  Sometimes our role can be misunderstood while at other times our role is regarded as vital within the school and the learning environment.

Below is a link to a video on teachertube so it should not be blocked by system filters on what one teacher librarian believes her role to be through her manifesto of a Librarian 2.0.  It makes thoughtful reading, especially for me the idea of understanding how my studetns learn and working in that environment, even though it may be different than my own.

NLA Innovative Ideas Forum 2009

Yesterday I attended the National Library of Australia’s Innovative Ideas Forum 2009. The theme for this year’s forum was “The value and significance of social networking for cultural institutions”. I really appreciated the diversity of the program. Marcus Gillezeau’s (Producer/Director, Firelight Productions) presentation on the social phenomenon of Scorched.tv (cross platform tele-movie feature on Channel 9 in August 2008) really challenged me in terms of the power of social networking and an increasing blurring of the lines between fiction and reality in a world where info-consumers become info-producers.  At the end of the day as I debriefed with some friends, trying to ‘unpack’ the many complexities of Scorched as 21stC all-media storytelling, comparisons to the War of the Worlds radio play was noted a number of times!

The sessions by Dr Anne Summers (Author and Columnist),  Mark Scott (Managing Director, ABC), Rose Holley (Manager, Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program, NLA), Darren Sharp (Senior Consultant, Collabforge) and  Jo Kay (Freelance Geek, Designer,Facilitator, Second Lifer) all addressed in some way, the impact of social networking on our lives, both personally and as information professionals.

The National Library also encouraged audience participation using Web 2.0 tools throughout the day… it was great to see people tweeting on their laptops and mobile phones, uploading photos in Flickr and recording ideas and responses on their blogs. Keep your eye on NLA’s iif2009 website for the vidcasts and podcasts of each session. Darren Sharp’s presentation Library 2.0: Citizens Co-Creating Culture has just been made available. These will be great resources for all CSU TL students to visit, esp. ETL401, ETL411, ETL523 and INF5XX (the new social networking subject for 2010 that I have yet to write!).

This is the fourth year that the NLA has hosted an innovation forum. I am already looking forward to seeing the draft of the 2010 program!