PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

An Evaluation of the Personal and Professional Skills Required To Meet both Organisational and Own Goals and Objectives



Table of Content

Introduction3

Personal Skills3

Professional skills6

Marketing and Promotion8

Evaluation10

Communication, Negotiation and Collaboration13

Censorship16

Personal Transferable Skills19

REFERENCES22

An Evaluation of the Personal and Professional Skills Required To Meet both Organisational and Own Goals and Objectives

Introduction

New technologies mean library and information science is currently characterised by fast-paced change, with staff needing to be flexible in adapting and adopting new skills and levels of awareness. New developments need to be marketed and evaluated, and these are additional skills for information professionals to adopt. Other emerging skills in the electronic information environment are communication, negotiation and collaboration, with information professionals being called upon to teach new skills. This paper evaluates of the personal and professional skills required to meet both organisational and own goals and objectives

Personal Skills

Although there is a plethora of new skills, job descriptions and working environments for professionals in the library and information sciences to contend with, by far the most important development must come from within the working culture itself - this being the ability for professionals to adapt and remain flexible as working practices and access to information itself remains in a constant state of flux alongside emerging technologies. This belief is very much in evidence in current literature addressing new skills within library and information sciences.

Biddiscombe comments on the need to preserve elemental skills and retain a flexible approach: There is a need to maintain those essential skills that have always made librarians respected in their communities; they will need to retain their flexible working skills, their openness to new ideas and their caring approach to user needs (Biddiscombe, 2001, p. 166).

This is echoed by Sharp: The information that users require may be accessed differently but the skills the information professionals need to manage this information can be adapted from established practices (Sharp, 2001, p. 78).

Both Goulding and Pedley point out the need for flexibility and adaptation in a challenging environment: Despite its rather fusty and staid public image, those of us who work in or alongside the library and information profession know that the environment is a challenging one in which reorientation, flexibility and adaptation are frequently necessary (Goulding, 2001, p. 65).

Does [a] move towards disintermediation mean that the importance of the role of the information professional is waning? I don't think so, but we do need to adapt to a changing work environment (Pedley, 2001, p. 8).

Krauss-Leichert focuses on the flexibility of the skills themselves: instead of a fixed set of specifications, it is necessary to work towards the formulation of (key) qualifications and skills which will enable future information professionals to adapt to new developments as well as to anticipate and actively influence these developments (Krauss-Leichert, 2001, p. 163).

Bierman emphasises this need for flexibility: Librarians must remain flexible for the future. If we are indeed headed toward a virtual library environment, librarians can't remain rigid like the walls of their library buildings but must be willing to make changes in ...