Alumni participation in LIS program review: the case of MLIS at University of the Punjab.
Mahmood, Khalid ; Shafique Farzana
Introduction
Emergence of the digital era has posed rapid social, cultural and
technological changes and challenges to the human society. The library
as a social institution and librarianship as a service-oriented
profession are now at the focal point of revolutionary changes. These
changes not only added a new dimension of information science to the
library education during the mid 1960s but further crystallization of
the information and retrieval systems during 1970s caused the
information science component to gain an upper hand, transforming the
discipline and introducing new concerns, issues and challenges. Keeping
this reality in view Rehman (1) pointed out that in today's world
we have no choice but to be open, creative and enterprising in our
outlook. The process of curriculum design and implementation is complex
and intricate. However, if we do not tread this difficult course, we
will become irrelevant.
Department of Library and Information Science at the University of
the Punjab, Lahore is the oldest LIS education provider in Pakistan. It
initiated a certificate program for librarians in 1915 in the British
regime under the supervision of Asa Don Dickinson, a pupil of Melvil
Dewey. After independence this program was converted into a postgraduate
diploma. A master program was started in 1974. Since then more than 1500
students got master degrees and have been serving various types of
libraries, information centers and library schools throughout the
country. Lahore is the second largest city of Pakistan having an
approximate population of 10 millions. A large number of LIS graduates
are working in Lahore. The second largest cluster of the graduates of
this department is Islamabad, the country capital 288 kilometers away
from Lahore. Other graduates are mainly working in university and
college libraries in cities and towns of all sizes in the Punjab
province. The remaining professionals serve some organizations in other
provinces and even in abroad particularly the oil rich countries of
Middle East.
The Higher Education Commission of Pakistan is responsible for
revision and recommendation of a common curriculum. It has set up a
National Curriculum Revision Committee LIS consisting of representatives
from all library schools and some working librarians. The last revision
made by this committee was in 2002. This committee is only a
recommendatory body and it is up to the individual universities to
implement the curriculum as such or further revise it. The Department of
LIS at the University of the Punjab immediately implemented the new
curriculum. After some time, the senior professionals, particularly from
large university and special libraries, started to insist for further
revision and effective implementation of the LIS curriculum. Flaws in
LIS education have been a common topic in professional gatherings and
seminars. Practitioners were criticizing the quality of education by
claiming that library schools were not keeping pace with the
technological and environmental developments in libraries. They were
feeling difficulties in finding manpower possessing required knowledge,
skills and attitude. Even graduates with good grades were lacking in
some basic skills. Keeping in view the situation the principal
researcher conducted some surveys to assess educational needs at entry
level and experienced manpower (i.e., References 2 and 3). Meanwhile,
the principal author got an opportunity to become head of the
department. He decided to conduct a thorough review of the MLIS program
and design and implement a new curriculum. The review and design process
included seeking practitioners' feedback through an LIS listserv, a
questionnaire survey of the alumni, a detailed literature search, a
review of course contents of LIS schools all over the world available on
the World Wide Web, and two focus group interviews of chief librarians
considering them the potential employers of the department's
graduates. This paper presents results of the alumni survey conducted
for this purpose.
Review of Literature
Library and information science (LIS) education focuses on
developing a workforce suitable to the demands of the contemporary
information environment. There is a need to audit the LIS curriculum for
its relevance to the twenty-first century hybrid environment (4). This
reality is also pointed out by many authors. For example Singh (5)
stressed that if we look around, we find that there is a paradigm shift
from traditional libraries to digital/virtual libraries, from standalone
libraries to library and information networks, from printed publications
to digital documents, from ownership to access, from just-in-case to
just-in-time access, from linear to non-linear interaction, from
intra-active to interactive systems, from exclusive to inclusive
society, from analogue to digital documents, from atoms to bits, from
intermediary to end-user, from hot to cool medium, from library to web,
from order to chaos, and from open source to WIKI-Space. But theses
changes are not comprehensively visible in the LIS curricula of the
developing world.
Most Third World countries are lacking behind to prepare themselves
to face the new problems and fulfill rapidly changing requirements of
library and information science profession. One such country is
Pakistan, where the scene is not very different. Mahmood (2) stated that
the literature of LIS in Pakistan did not show an encouraging view of
LIS curricula in the country. Curriculum development was not taken
seriously in library schools and practitioners always criticized library
schools in Pakistan for not producing manpower of quality. Out-dated and
irrelevant curriculum was one of the charges they leveled. While
criticizing the teaching methods used in the library schools of
Pakistan, Haider (6) pointed out that the traditional lecture method was
the most common form of teaching in our universities. Teachers spent
hours standing in front of the class discussing different reference
sources without having a practical use of them. According to him, the
courses on management were taught without making use of case study
method. The cataloging of special material was taught without using the
actual material; the course on "Comparative classification"
was taught without having necessary classification schedules. The
courses on "Bibliography" were taught without sources like
CBI, BNB, Book Review Digest, Ulrich, etc. Even the old editions of
these bibliographies were not available to the students. The same
situation was found in the courses on "Library automation."
Students were just theoretically introduced to the basics of computing
without any sort of demonstration, and no hands-on experience. Only one
library school had, in the true sense, the facility of a computer lab
and a part-time teacher qualified in computer science. The other schools
only had two to four computers each, which were not used for instruction
purposes. Similarly, Ameen (7) mentioned many factors hindering the
curriculum revision process in Pakistan. According to her it has been
due to the non-availability of senior faculty members/experts in new
disciplines, lack of faculty development opportunities, as well as poor
infrastructure to implement changed curricula and lengthy procedure of
curriculum reviewing through different bodies of the universities.
Furthermore, some faculty members did not exert themselves to keep
abreast with the new developments in their area of specializations. She
believes that this state directly hampered the quality of Library and
Information Science Education programs at all library schools in
Pakistan.
In spite of these gloomy glimpses few efforts were made in the near
past for overcoming such problems. Qarshi (8) reviewed the curriculum
revision efforts at DLIS, PU. He categorized these revisions in four
phases. According to him, the first phase is spread over the initial 32
years of 1915-1947. The curriculum almost remained constant despite
major advancements in the professional field. In the second phase of
1950-74 although curriculum designers departed from the initial
framework of Asa Don Dickinson but again the changes were minimal and
inconsistent with the concomitant pace of changes in the field. The
third phase, 1974-90 was significant due to the introduction of
Master's degree. Although during 1980s, this curriculum had become
obsolete. An initiative taken in 1989 resulted in an overall change in
the thrust and content of the academic program. In 1997, a curriculum
was designed on the basis of revision by the National Curriculum
Committee in the subject of Library and information Science, which took
three years to finally implement it. In the year 2002, the Department
decided to shift to semester system and the courses were designed
according to the requirements of the system. Another revision was
incorporated in 2004 (9). Shafique (10) conducted interviews with the
students of DLIS, PU to find out their views about the future trends in
the field. According to her the future professionals believed that LIS
curricula would be changed completely. It would be more ICT focused and
comprehensive knowledge of the field of specialization would be provided
using state of the art equipments and technology labs. They out looked
that dependence on continuing education programs would increase and
online multimedia resources would be integrated into the learning
process. These trends would enable the students to choose to study at
their own time, place and pace. Moreover professional chat rooms, online
instructions, guides, workshops and seminars would expand.
Objectives
The purpose of this study was to review and improve MLIS program of
DLIS, PU in the light of feedback provided by its alumni. The specific
objectives of this study are:
* To survey the nature of job currently performed by various alumni
of the program.
* To seek alumni feedback on usefulness of various courses offered
in MLIS program in their present jobs.
* To explore alumni perception on effectiveness of different
delivery and teaching methods.
* To seek alumni suggestions to improve the quality of MLIS
program.
Method
To achieve the objectives of this study a survey of the alumni of
the MLIS program was conducted. In the absence of a comprehensive
directory of librarians in Pakistan 250 graduates of MLIS program at
DLIS, PU were identified in the cities of Lahore and Islamabad with the
help of current MLIS students. The survey instrument was distributed
through e-mail by the authors and personal visits of MLIS students. An
84 percent response from the alumni was received (n=209). The high
response rate shows higher level of affiliation and concern of the
alumni towards their alma matter.
Results and Discussion
Personal profile of the participants
According to the results (shown in Table 1) most of the
participants of this study belonged to university libraries (49%), while
others were from special libraries (21%), college libraries (15%) and
public libraries (11%). It was found that the participants passed their
MLIS/MLS during 1975-2007. Most of them (46%) passed their masters
during recent years, i.e., 2001 to 2007. The participants'
professional experience varied between one year and above 31 years. The
largest group (43%) had experience up to five years. These figures
reveal that most of the participants of this study were young librarians
who were fresh graduates of the DLIS and had less professional
experience. However, senior professionals also participated in a
reasonable number.
Table 1. Personal profile of the participants
Percent
Type of institution:
University library 49
Special library 21
College library 15
Public library 11
Information Center 1
Others 1
Year of passing MLIS:
Up to 1980 5
1981-1990 20
1991-2000 19
2001 onward 46
Professional experience:
Up to 5 years 43
6-10 years 14
11-15 years 8
16-20 years 7
21-25 years 7
26-30 years 7
31 years and above 2
Present job activities
All participants were librarians by profession. They were provided
with a list of activities most of the librarians do in their job. Figure
1 presents a bar-chart of the job activities they performed their
libraries with a percent score of the respondents. The activities
performed by at least 50 percent of the respondents include cataloging,
classification, administration, acquisitions, reference work,
automation, management of staff, supervision, planning, circulation,
collection development and assessing information needs. This list mainly
includes the house-keeping routines and management of a library.
Usefulness of MLIS courses in present job activities
The participants were asked to show their perception on the
usefulness of various MLIS courses in their present job activities.
Percent scores given in Table 2 reveal that the courses found 'very
useful' by at least 70 percent of the respondents include
'reference services and sources,' 'information
science,' 'information technology and libraries,'
'management,' 'applied library automation,' and
'applied classification.' The courses which were found useful
by most of the librarians belong to the areas of technical services,
technology and management. This trend corresponds with the previous
studies on needed competencies of librarians in Pakistan.
Table 2. Usefulness of different MLIS courses in present job activities
of the participants (Percent)
Rank Course Very Somewhat Not No
useful useful useful opinion
1. Reference services and 86 10 1 4
sources
2. Information science 84 11 1 5
3. Information technology and 79 11 1 10
libraries
4. Management 76 17 3 4
5. Applied library automation 73 13 2 12
6. Applied classification 70 20 0 10
7. Collection development and 64 20 4 12
management
8. Applied cataloging 62 23 4 11
9. Resource sharing and 61 16 7 16
networking
10. Practicum 57 20 6 17
11. Advanced management 56 23 6 16
techniques
12. Theory of classification 55 36 3 7
13. Research methods 54 28 6 13
14. Theory of cataloging 51 40 4 5
15. Database structure and 51 22 7 20
design
16. Management of serial 50 32 5 13
publications
17. Marketing of library & 47 29 6 18
information services
18. Academic libraries 46 28 8 18
19. Communication and media 46 28 8 19
librarianship
20. Indexing and Abstracting 45 32 6 17
21. Thesis and viva voce 42 21 8 30
22. Web publishing 41 24 11 24
23. Special libraries 39 34 11 17
24. International and comparative 39 30 10 22
librarianship
25. Public records and their 36 30 12 22
conservation
26. Public libraries 35 29 15 21
27. Foundation of librarianship 35 38 16 11
28. Literature of science and 34 39 10 18
technology
29. Literature of Islam and 31 36 13 20
Pakistan
30. Theory and practice of 30 48 8 14
bibliography
31. Science and technology 28 37 12 23
libraries
32. Literature of social 24 47 12 16
sciences
33. Health and medical sciences 24 30 23 23
libraries
34. School libraries 24 33 21 23
35. Children libraries 21 28 22 29
36. Literature of humanities 21 43 15 22
37. Law libraries 19 37 22 22
38. Agricultural libraries 14 35 26 24
Effectiveness of delivery and teaching methods
The participants found multiple delivery and teaching methods
effective. The methods which could attract the attention of more than 70
percent respondents include class discussions, class lectures, hands on
computer practice and student presentations (Table 3).
Table 3. Effectiveness of different delivery and teaching methods
(Percent)
Rank Delivery and Teaching Very Somewhat Not No
Methods effective effective effective opinion
1. Class discussions 82 12 0 6
2. Class lectures 81 13 0 6
3. Hands on computer 76 13 1 10
practice
4. Student 75 17 1 7
presentations
5. Books and journals 67 23 2 8
reading
6. Library tours 64 32 1 3
7. Consultation with 55 34 2 10
teachers outside
classroom
8. Home assignments 50 27 3 20
9. Guest lectures 48 43 2 7
Suggestions to improve the quality of MLIS program
The participants' opinions were sought on a list of measures
to improve the quality of MLIS program. Most of the them strongly
recommended that teachers should be trained in latest technologies (92%)
for improving the quality of MLIS program. They also strongly
recommended that more hardware and software should be provided in
computer lab (89%), more books and journals should be provided in
library (83%), more focus should be given to research (79%), and
curriculum should be revised more frequently (73%). They also emphasized
on the provision of more physical facilities, evaluation of MLIS program
by employers, and co-curricular activities. While the alumni were not
clear on the change in entry requirements and the introduction of
admission test (Table 4).
Table 4. Suggestions to improve the quality of MLIS program (Percent)
Rank Suggestion Strongly Somewhat Not No
recommended recommended recommended opinion
1. Teachers should be 92 3 0 5
trained in latest
technologies
2. More hardware and 89 8 0 3
software should be
provided in
computer lab
3. More books and 83 12 0 5
journals should be
provided in
library
4. More focus should 79 14 1 6
be given to
research
5. Department should 76 13 1 10
coordinate with
other
organizations to
share resources
6. Curriculum should 73 18 2 7
be revised more
frequently
7. More physical 67 25 2 5
facilities
(Building,
air-conditioning,
etc.) should be
provided
8. MLIS program 67 22 7 5
should be
evaluated by
employers
9. More focus should 57 35 1 8
be given to
co-curricular
activities of
students
10. Entry requirements 37 34 12 16
should be changed
11. Admission test 34 32 23 11
should be
introduced
An open space was also provided to the participants to give their
suggestions to make MLIS program better and in line with the
requirements of practical librarianship. A reasonable number of
respondents (67%) gave their suggestions in this regard. Most of the
respondents suggested that more emphasis should be on practice of
theoretical contents. They also suggested that IT and communication
skills (written and oral) of students should be improved and
teachers' training should be a regular component along with the
revision of the curriculum.
Conclusion
The results of this study reveal that alumni were performing a wide
range of tasks in their job settings. They perceived not only the
traditional course contents as very useful in their present jobs but
they have also mentioned a variety of IT and communication related
contents as very useful for their work. They stressed on new teaching
and delivery methods and class discussions besides the routine class
lectures. They believed that the quality of MLIS program will improve
only when teachers will be trained according to the changing trends.
Besides this they recommended the provision of more and latest
facilities and more focus on practice.
The researchers found the results of this alumni survey very useful
to review and improve the standard of MLIS program of the department. In
the light of the findings of this study and some other research
activities an entirely new curriculum was designed which was
successfully passed through a long journey for its approval
(Departmental faculty - Board of Studies in LIS - Board of Faculty of
Economics & Management Sciences - Academic Council) and now has been
implemented. On the request of the department the Higher Education
Commission has also provided some amount to purchase ICT equipment and
reference tools. Following the example of the University of the Punjab
two library schools at the Islamia University of Bahawalpur and Allama
Iqbal Open University, Islamabad are also making arrangements to update
their MLIS curricula on the same lines.
References
(1.) S. Rehman, Developing new competencies among LIS
professionals: Challenges for educators. Pakistan Journal of Library and
Information Science, 10 (2008), 67-81.
(2.) K. Mahmood, A comparison between needed competencies of
academic librarians and LIS curricula in Pakistan. The Electronic
Library, 21 (2003), 99-109.
(3.) K. Mahmood & M. A. Khan, ICT training for LIS
professionals in Pakistan: A needs assessment. Program: Electronic
Library and Information Systems, 41 (2007), 418-427.
(4.) R. S. R. Varalakshmi, Educating 21st century LIS
professionals-Needs and expectations: A survey of Indian LIS
professionals and alumni. Journal of Education for Library and
Information Science, 47 (2006), 181-199.
(5.) J. Singh, LIS education and knowledge management: Issues and
implications. In C. R. Karisiddappa & B. D. Kumar (Eds.), Building
curriculum with a difference: A vision for LIS education in the 21st
century: Conference papers and proceedings- 23 IATLIS National
Conference, (pp. 417-429). Dharwad: IATLIS, 2006.
(6.) S. J. Haider, Educating future librarians in Pakistan: A
library educator's perspective. Education for Information, 16
(1998), 29-44.
(7.) K. Ameen, Issues of quality assurance (QA) in LIS higher
education in Pakistan. South Asian Libraries & Information Networks
(SALIN-an electronic journal) (1998), Retrieved 24th June, 2008, from:
http://www.punjabiuniversity.ac.in/pages/dlis/salin/kanwalammen.htm
(8.) A. H. Qarshi, Development of curriculum at the University of
the Punjab: Dickinson's contributions and afterwards. In S. Rehman,
A. Sattar, A. H. Qarshi (Eds.), Library education in Pakistan: Past,
present and future, (pp. 77-94). Lahore: PULSAA, 1992.
(9.) A. H. Qarshi, Voyage through history. Pakistan Journal of
Library and Information Science, 7 (2006), 1-4.
(10.) F. Shafique. (2007). Librarianship: How is the future
perceived by librarians in Pakistan? Library Review, 56 (9), 811-820.
Khalid Mahmood
Professor
Department of Library and Information Science
University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan
Farzana Shafique
Lecturer
Department of Library and Information Science
The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan
