Around about a LIS Curriculum

Post begun April 2009:
Strolling through the months' old Bloglines that accumulated while the boys and I were busy moving last year, I try not to stop for long on every interesting post... and that is difficult, particularly when people are kindly sharing their notes from conference sessions and I want to absorb the details. Sigh.

Still, I had to stop when I reached the following slide from Meredith Farkas' presentation at The future is here, library conference in Iceland. (I'd link to that but it was a pdf and it seized for me so I shan't).


Aren't these all subjects that can be learned through professional development, self-education and a capacity to read, experiment, reflect and apply critical thinking?... aside from Management (and possibly not even that), none of these require "higher" education, merely a capacity for informacy, action, reflection and critical thinking.

Today:
I've delayed posting this for almost a year. Each time I've begun to contemplate how much of these topics have been addressed throughout my Advanced Diploma course, and independent study I've been distracted. It seems absurd to me that our industry requires a library-degree (or worse a Masters!) for qualification to work as an entry-level librarian, when the job description could be filled by intelligent people with demonstrable knowledge and skills obtained through other means.

So there are a few themes I'd like to explore at some point, though not yet:

1. The actual skills and knowledge required in the most fundamental librarian positions - (the variety of ways such skills might be obtained and demonstrated/outcomes of LIS program) = should a degree (or whatever) be essential for a librarian position?
2. If there are certain topics desired to be learned prior to employment as a librarian which aren't in a LIS program does this necessarily mean the subjects should be in a LIS program? Might it be more logical to reconsider the required qualifications for librarianship?
   
3. In what ways are LIS Advanced Diploma and Degree programs significantly different and what difference, if any, does this make in job-performance-capacity?

Considering a discussion with my son today about "Don't sweat the small stuff" and "it's all small stuff", I might leave those ideas in the air. Feel free to comment.