What are the essential knowledge, skills, and attributes of the Information Professional in the digital era?

Burton (2019) identified areas of significant growth in the LIS field over the last five years as digital services, study spaces, and computer areas. In essence, the services which are growing fastest are those which transform the library from a place of knowledge, to a place of learning. In this post, I will explore the necessary skills and attributes best suited for an information professional in the digital era.

1. Information literacy education: According to Burton (2019), information literacy is still paramount to the services of the librarian. However, the information literacy and education is a much different beast to what it was ten years ago. It is essential that a librarian can critically analyse data and information to pass on the most accurate information possible to a patron. Additionally, serving these skills to patrons may include educating patrons on fake news and misinformation, as well as deriving facts and bias from multiple sources of media we consume today. This is especially important for the elder community who may be late to social media, and are not yet able to differentiate between authentic and unauthentic pieces of information.

2. Customer service skills: Basic and cognitive skills may be made redundant by AI, but social and emotional skills will remain highly relevant (Ayinde & Kirkwood, 2020). As the digital era forces the librarian out of stocking and collection and further into people, the shift to a more customer oriented role is natural. Now, librarians have always been customer oriented, this is true, but now it is far more about teaching, than simply providing information. Information professionals need to be able to communicate with a broad range of users and needs, and navigate the complex relationships they may have with others. An example of this may be hosting a language group on a Monday morning, then Storytime in the afternoon, and an elderly tech group the next day. All three require a specific set of customer service skills catering to a different audience. The library is moving away from the ‘silent’ place, to a hub of learning and community, which will put customer service at the forefront of everything we do. The WEF ‘Future of Jobs’ report listed emotional intelligence and coordinating other people as highly sought after by employers in 2020 (Ayinde & Kirkwood, 2020). Those are two intertwined customer service skills.

3. Adaptation/Flexibility: As a teacher I have seen this in education, and the same applies to libraries as well. Lack of adaptation or flexibility, often leads to professionals falling behind. An essential skill to the digital era is to be open to learning what this new thing might offer, and find creative ways to apply it to your service. Resisting a digital era won’t prevent it from coming, but it will fly past you and force you to catch up. Our users are part of an information age and a digital era; we must adapt to maintain the importance and relevance of information services in the modern world.

Word count: 499.

Reference List

Burton, S. (2019). Future skills for the LIS profession. Online Searcher, 43(2), 42-45.

Ayinde, L., & Kirkwood, H. (2020). Rethinking the roles and skills of information professionals in the 4th Industrial Revolution. Business Information Review, 37(4), 142-153. https://doi.org/10.1177/0266382120968057