Skills Required for the 21st Century
1. What are the skills required for the library technician of the 21st century.
2. Has it changed over time or are the fundamentals the same?
3. How can existing workers build on their current skills and knowledge?
4. How do we get the right people into the Library and Information profession?
As Libraries/Information Centres are facing a potential skill shortage in the next 5 to 10 years, with up to 50% of their workers over 45 and many are likely to retire within that period. Recruitment, retention and retraining strategies need to be put into place now to avert this issue. Key to the success of those strategies will be education and training. Key to success of education training is clear understanding skills requirements.
This workshop will examine the knowledge and skills required over the next 5 to 10 years by new and existing library technician and other information para professionals. This includes looking at how roles have changed over the past 10 to 20 years and whether the fundamentals and theoretical framework learnt then are the same as and can be applied going forward? It will also look at the changing nature of the workplace and specifically of libraries and information centres and the impact this will have on skills and knowledge requirements.
In doing this we will also look at how can existing workers can build on their current skills and knowledge to be relevant going forward and also how does the sector get and retain the right people with the right attributes into the Library and Information profession.
Additionally we will also look at current education and training practices to see if the way we currently teach and deliver training is the best way forward or whether the sector should be looking at different models.
Finally the workshop will examine the implications of federal government policy including generic employability skills, competency based training and traineeships and state government policy on priorities for state funded training. It will also examine issues surrounding current workers which include upskilling, retraining, and multiskilling.
The workshop outcome should provide at least some answers or leads to the 4 key questions posed at the beginning of the session.