1 / 10

Challenging Librarians: the Relevance of the Doctorate in Professional Practice

Challenging Librarians: the Relevance of the Doctorate in Professional Practice. Peter Macauley Deakin University.

ruby
Télécharger la présentation

Challenging Librarians: the Relevance of the Doctorate in Professional Practice

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Challenging Librarians: the Relevance of the Doctorate in Professional Practice Peter Macauley Deakin University

  2. Librarianship is an academic discipline but at present it occupies a basement in the house of intellect. It will climb upstairs when it can present a more firmly based tradition of scholarship, more certain and significant research findings, a less didactic approach to its subject matter so that students in library schools participate in academic questioning and argument rather than concentrating on learning a body of facts that will, inevitably, be out of date; and a more pervading sense of urgency and purpose. (Jean Whyte, 1984)

  3. Some Misconceptions • Pure Applied Research • Prior to Career Mid-Career • Academia Professions • Full-Time On-Campus Part-Time &/or Off-Campus • Young, male, science-based, H1

  4. The Reality of Doctoral Candidature in Australia • 72% are over 30 years old • Approximately 50% are part-time • 40% are part-time and off-campus • Only 40% enter academia • 51% male, 49% female • 55% are in professional fields of study • = flexibility and diversity

  5. (Ir)relevance of the Doctorate to Professional Practice • Programmes too narrow • Too specialised • Too theoretical • Poor communication, interpersonal, and leadership skills • Doesn’t encourage multi-disciplinary or trans-disciplinary work • Precludes involvement of practitioners

  6. Information/Knowledge • Librarians focus on information • Researchers focus on knowledge • Turning information into knowledge • e.g. Information Literacy Framework cf. Research Degree Graduate Qualities • Reproducing information • Creating knowledge

  7. A Practical Example • ‘Doctoral research and scholarly communication: candidates, supervisors and information literacy’ • Qualitative/ quantitative • Questionnaires (400+ respondents) • Interviews (72 candidates & supervisors) • Four universities involved • Part-time, full-time, on-campus, off-campus

  8. Librarianship is an academic discipline but at present it occupies a basement in the house of intellect. It will climb upstairs when it can present a more firmly based tradition of scholarship, more certain and significant research findings, a less didactic approach to its subject matter so that students in library schools participate in academic questioning and argument rather than concentrating on learning a body of facts that will, inevitably, be out of date; and a more pervading sense of urgency and purpose. (Jean Whyte, 1984)

  9. A Final Challenge • Consider undertaking a doctorate • Create some new knowledge • Make a significant contribution to professional practice

More Related