SJSU put on its spring conference of Library 2.0 on Expertise, Competencies, and Careers, on March 29th. One of the many interesting presentations was given by David Shumaker, from The Catholic University of America. He was one of the key participants in formulating the 2016 Core competencies for SLA librarians. These competencies are aimed at defining the skills central to work as an “information professional.”
While their framework looked at both core competencies specific to information professionals and those shared by other fields, I’ve outlined here those competencies specific to information professionals. The six competencies can be found on the SLA website, but what was particularly relevant about this particular presentation was that Shumaker highlighted what the group saw as changing needs for today’s information world. As we select our course choices, Shumaker’s list (captured in the bulleted notes below) is a timely reminder of what the field is currently viewing as significant.
6 core competencies:
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Information and knowledge services
- Includes teaching, training, and developing information literacy and associated skills. (Valerie Gross, the keynote speaker, also emphasized the important intersection of education and the information professional.)
- Understanding the varied aspects of human information behavior.
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Information and knowledge systems and technology
- Designing user interfaces.
- Coding.
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Information and knowledge resources
- Data–information–knowledge.
- All types, media, formats, and recordable knowledge in people’s heads; all levels of data, information, and knowledge.
- Auditing and mapping assets, both internally and externally, generated at all stages.
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Information and data retrieval and analysis
- Retrieval and analysis.
- Tools for analysis and visualization.
- Assessing veracity or quality.
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Organization of data, information and knowledge assets
- Metadata, taxonomies, and ontologies.
- Not cataloging.
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Information Ethics
- Issues that commonly emerge in our professions: user and creator rights, privacy vs. the right to know.
- Relationship to business ethics.
