This is a PowerPoint presentation (20 slides) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 in Session 4.1: Continuing Education Programs in the U.S. and Canada, sponsored by the Continuing Education SIG at the 2005 ALISE Conference, Boston, MA. The presentation reviews issues of continuing education (CE) from different perspectives. By introducing the experience of the Dalhousie University's Library Science Program in CE, it discusses common problems and highlights some successes. It also advocates collaborative research with other LIS schools and with library associations.

As networked digital information proliferates and modern society's need to have access to information irrespective of location rises, the education needed for the digerati, defined loosely as the digital intelligentsia, the whole class of expert digital information professionals, becomes an important area about which all information professionals should stay informed. This paper describes the three concepts - interdisciplinarity, interactivity, and interoperability - that are an integral part of digital library research and their use in the curriculum development, teaching, and learning of a specific area of study within Library and Information Science (LIS), namely knowledge organization (KO). KO, studied intellectually, self-referentially, and immersively, it is argued, can provide the foundation for the modern digerati. This is a preprint of a paper published in Education for Information 23 (4): 233-243. The paper elaborates a presentation made at the IMLS Workshop on Digital Libraries Education (JCDL 2005).

LIS education focuses on developing manpower suitable to the demands of the contemporary information environment. There is need to audit the LIS curriculum for its relevance to the 21st century hybrid environment. This paper analyzes the opinions of young and experienced professionals on existing LIS coursesâ ability to meet the demand and increase employability. The paper proposes a general framework to overcome the lacunae.

This presentation was presented in Session 6.4 â Reports of Current Research (Juried Papers), at the 2005 ALISE Conference. It uses 20 slides to summarize current situations and developing trends of information technologies. It raises an important issue in the development â globalization, which emphasizes the efficiency of modern technologies in delivering information to people around the world. Africa is used as a case to illustrate how local policies have played important roles in the process of information globalization.

Recent discussions of education for library professionals have strongly criticized the state of most Library and Information Science (LIS) schools, which are portrayed as techno-centric, male-dominated, and out of touch with the needs of practitioners. In the present essay we examine the major claims for a new crisis in LIS education and conclude that the data do not support most of the popular criticisms made of this field. Instead, the notion of crisis is best understood as indicative of a moment of change and an opportunity to significantly affect the long-term future of the field.

This paper discusses the aspirations of library and information science (LIS) educators particularly in the Faculty of Information Management, UiTM. The Faculty of Information Management is the main provider of manpower needs for the library and information science profession in the country. The focus of the discussions is on the development that has taken shape in the Faculty of Information Management, UiTM particularly on the undergraduate library and information science programs. Within that premise, a comparison is made between the aspirations of LIS educators and the reality of the LIS industry particularly in the public sector in the country.

This presentation (of 11 Microsoft PowerPoint slides and a narrative in Microsoft Word) at the 2005 ALISE Conference held at Boston (Jan. 11-14) was delivered in Session 3.4 titled LIS Faculty and the Future. It is a follow-up study to a previous one which was reported at the ALISE 2004 conference about PhD students in LIS. 148 Curriculum Vitae packages received by ALISE in search of a position as future LIS faculty were analyzed. Of the 106 CVs with usable data, the study found that 45 dissertations were library-oriented, 25 in the area of information theory, 6 were information technology, and 20 were indeterminate or outside the field. Seavey concludes by asking "Do we have a crisis?" and notes that the answer "depends on the meaning of crisis" while also acknowledging that there are "definitely problems within speciality areas."

This article takes campus libraries and computer labs as some of the physical standards in the evaluation of LIS programs. It uses both outputs and inputs of a program to measure its presentations.

This is a juried paper presentation (of 21 slides) in Session 2.2 â International Programs & Students (Juried Papers), on Wednesday Jan. 12, at the 2005 ALISE Conference. The history and current situation of LIS education in Latin America and the Caribbean is presented. The traditions of European and U.S. LIS educations as well as UNESCO's Programs have influenced the development of latin educational systems. However the policies of regional authorities have contributed to the shaping and re-shaping of LIS programs in these areas.

This article emphasizes (1) librarianship today is a technology-dependent discipline that is driven by technological changes, and (2) libraries will need to adopt a much more business-like model and develop management skills. The author thought the ideas about libraries could be applied to library schools. Accordingly, suggestions were made for library schools: (1) they must change redically, and (2) a commitment to reinvigorated continuing education may represent a good step for them to redefine what it does. Some examples were used to illustrated the ideas.