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U.S. Wields Financial Sanctions Against Iran

On Oct. 22, the Department of the Treasury levied financial sanctions against the Export Development Bank of Iran and three of its affiliates for their role in providing financial services to Iranian defense organizations suspected of involvement in Tehran's nuclear and missile programs, effectively cutting them off from the U.S. financial system. Washington has increasingly relied on such financial restrictions to respond to and deter the financing of proliferation and, more broadly to place pressure on countries of proliferation concern such as Iran. (See ACT, October 2008.)

Although the use of sanctions against entities suspected of involvement in proliferation is not new, the …

Programming not required: skills & knowledge for the digital library environment.(Report)

INTRODUCTION

Library and Information Science (LIS) education in Australia, like many other countries around the world, has been and is moving through a period of evaluation and change, as the educational and skill requirements for librarians and information workers of the future evolve in the light of the rapidly changing LIS environment. In Australia, this is evidenced by the activities of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), including the Education and Workforce Summit held in March 2008 (ALIA, 2008), and the National Advisory Congress (NAC) held in July 2008 (ALIA, 2009). Among other things, the Workforce Summit explored broader issues surrounding library and information education, whilst the NAC discussed what needed to be done to ensure information workers possess the appropriate skills and knowledge necessary for a future workforce faced with a radically changing working environment.

The study reported here investigated what is perhaps one of the most challenging facets of the evolving LIS field--managing the distal library. The stimulus for this study was the realisation that LIS schools in the United States and Europe were offering dedicated distal library programs, often at the masters level, yet a scan of Australian LIS programs revealed that the same could not be said of LIS schools here. Specifically, the awareness of the existence, outside of Australia, of two specialised masters programs in digital library education and one project concerning digital library curricula, suggested they could serve as examples to inform local developments. The available existing programs are:

* An international Masters in Digital Library Learning (a joint masters program from Oslo University College, Parma University, and Tallinn University).

* A Masters in Digital Library and Information Services (University of Boras, Sweden), and

* The Digital Library Curriculum Project (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Virginia Tech collaboration)

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Spink & Cool (1999) highlighted the fact that despite the surge in digital library research and development at that time, very little support had been provided to enable development of the programs and curricula required to educate information professionals to work in the digital library environment. They acknowledged that "we do not know what knowledge is required to produce information or computer professionals to work as digital librarians, digital developers, or in other job categories..." In Australia at least, this still seems to be the case, with no evidence found of research being carried out specifically for digital library education.

However, before determining if there is a need for a dedicated digital library program in Australian LIS schools, it is important to understand what--in terms of both skills and knowledge--is actually required to work in a digital library environment: has understanding improved in the decade since Spink and Cool were writing? The continued absence of this understanding was noted by Weech in 2005, who reiterated that "we do not know much about what skills are needed for professionals who work as digital librarians." This suggestion that there is an ongoing lack of knowledge over the actual role of digital librarians and thus in their preparation for that role, reinforces the need to gain some insight into the skills and knowledge required, which might then be incorporated into the curriculum of a targeted digital library program. This paper therefore focuses on the key findings of an Australia-wide survey that sought to identify the skills and knowledge required to work in the digital library environment and the impact these findings might have for designing relevant LIS curricula.

Thus, the current research targeted practitioners already working in this area to ascertain their understanding of the skills and knowledge required to be successful and also, as a means of triangulation, asked LIS educators for their opinion about what they believed practitioners needed to work effectively in a digital library environment. This strategy was also useful in determining if there was a discrepancy or concurrence between practitioners' and educators' opinions (previous research bas routinely noted the gap between educators' and practitioners' viewpoints and emphasised the need to try and overcome this (Harvey & Higgins, 2003; Hallam, 2007). By seeking the opinion of both practitioners and educators, the study aimed to highlight what, if any differences do in fact exist, at least in this one sector of the LIS discipline.

A review of the literature revealed that with the exception of two studies (Partridge & Hallam, 2004; Choi & Rasmussen, 2006), staff actually working in the LIS environment had not hitherto been surveyed as to the skills they needed to perform their jobs effectively. The vast majority of studies that identify and discuss the skills required consist of content analyses performed on job advertisements. Other studies sought the opinions of employers whether that be directly (i.e., library directors) or via employment agencies. Although both methods are a valid way to ascertain the skills required to get a job, they do have limitations, as often the "ideal applicant" is profiled, reflecting employers' expectations rather than establishing the skills of the successful applicant. Additionally, these studies have not, for the most part, had an Australian focus, nor have many been undertaken with regard to specifically digital positions. One Australian study which did seek the opinions of educators and practitioners (and also students) is that of Partridge and Hallam, which identified the "skills, knowledge and attitudes of the archetypal information professional for the twenty-first century." (2004, p. 1)

The current study differed from the previous research in two ways. First, the focus was on the skills and knowledge required specifically in the digital library environment rather than the broader perspective. Second, coverage was extended to cover the entire Australian LIS environment. As far as has been determined, no previous study has been undertaken which focuses on the requirements of digital library positions within Australia, nor has any study surveyed both Australian educators and practitioners specifically about the digital library environment.

Definitions

It was not the intention of the study to debate differences in …