I’ve been reading a lot lately about the amazing application of skills attained by professionals who are in, or used to be in library & information science (LIS) professions.
LinkedIn was where I started reading. I monitored the LIS Career Options group -a subgroup of American Library Association group. The conversations have led me toward some really interesting reading, such as books/ articles on competitive intelligence, information entrepreneurship, and freelance contracting on sites such as eLance & Guru. Also, I have spoken with colleagues all over Canada and the United States through this forum.
However, I have also heard some interesting ideas on the topic from friends and professional acquaintances closer to home. I was recently emailed an article about librarians being essential additions to Instructional Design teams. Now you may be asking your self – ‘What is Instructional Design?’
It’s a field I only recently learned about. It can be defined in a few different ways; however, most commonly I’ve heard it described as a career within the e-learning and training industries, which uses a step-by-step process to design curriculum for adult learners. It can be a very organized procedure consisting of the following steps: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. I heard that large e-Learning companies employ instructional designers, as well as institutions and organizations that frequently need to re-train employees.
The article I received says information management is needed in the instructional design field, particularly in the realm of “discoverability.” It says a “modern librarian will be able to add extreme value with metadata, search readiness, content taxonomies and federated search models” (Masie, 2011).
I found this article very interesting. If you have an interesting topic to share in this area… please do.
Erin O’Halloran, BJH MLIS
Principal & Information Specialist
CloudScout Information Services
Email ErinOHalloran@CloudScout.ca