Search

Since its beginning, IFLA has been concerned with education and training, creating guidelines and standards for educational quality. Ninety years after the first IFLA Conference, IFLA Satellite returned to the Vatican Library with the aim of stimulating a high-level conversation on the future of librarians. This article is a reflection on the IFLA's role in the past and in the present for education and training and the impact of IFLA Global Vision on the education of new professionals. The main results of the conversation during the Satellite are that librarians are no longer the ones who mediate in a passive role between the communities and the collection but have been transformed into active agents of the community and, within it, "facilitators" of knowledge. The mutability of the global world context means that competencies must be reviewed and adapted to new operative instruments. The IFLA Global Vision and a focus on strong value bases may help librarians outline a more solid mission. Among the new disciplines emergent in the LIS context, technology and informatics are fundamental. The competencies in education have emphasized also the fundamental knowledge of research methods and critical abilities in analyzing the results. Nevertheless, librarians are not only users of research; they actively contribute to research and need practical abilities in programming and realization of research projects. From what emerged during the Rome Satellite, LIS is being enriched by new technological, ethical, and social aspects that should be inserted into future curricula and will become part of the librarian's identity. The very rethinking of professional identity has in itself brought a transformation in the LIS discipline, in which the concepts of digital inclusion, social inclusion, and lifelong learning are central.

AbstractThis paper critically examines the role of internships in equipping students with the skills and competencies required for digital librarianship, focusing on mentorship, skill-building, and the challenges of operating in diverse cultural and technological contexts. Using the Digital Library Learning (DILL) International Master’s Program as a case study, the analysis explores the practical and theoretical implications of conducting internships in both virtual and in-person formats. The methodology includes a questionnaire that has been distributed to students, interviews and a reflection by teachers and mentors. The final results highlight the skills acquired in the internship that have been useful to students in their career together with reflections on what mentors and teachers would do differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of conducting a study on generative artificial Intelligence (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, was to identify international perceptions and use among library and information professionals from Italy, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, and Mexico. A questionnaire with 12 items was developed and distributed at conferences and by email at the convenience of researchers. The outcome was of 605 cases who responded to the instrument, whose results were analyzed with descriptive and some inferential statistics. The results showed that librarians and libraries, regardless of the socio-economic development of their countries, were slow in using AI. AI training and setting of AI library policies were also almost absent. Libraries and librarians can strengthen their social mission by urgently adopting AI technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the development of an international Masters in Information Studies between the Universities of Parma (Italy) and Northumbria (United Kingdom). Rather than concentrating on a detailed discussion of course content, it considers the strengths of an international collaborative course development and delivery and the issues involved in developing such a course and gaining approval for it through the different procedures of two countries. (Contains 2 tables.)