Blooming in Japan

With the aim of assessing the impact of the Internet on libraries, a group of international educators met on 9 March at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. It was an appropriate context in which to chart new directions for information science education in networked societies. On the one hand, cultural traditions are extremely strong, while on the other, Japan is very advanced technologically. As the plum blossoms unfolded imperceptibly in the manicured public gardens near the university, the bullet train shot by between megalopolises.

Speakers from US universities joined those from the Asia-Pacific region at the annual symposium at Tsukuba of the Research Centre for Knowledge Communities. In the USA 18 schools of librarianship have formed a community of practice to improve understanding of the uses and users of information, as well as information technologies and their applications (http://www.ischools.org/oc). They have overhauled their curriculum, supported the Internet Public Library jointly, and will share research projects. Student demand for US courses in information science is increasing, in the midst of a long-term decline in related IT courses.

In Japan, Korea, Thailand and Taiwan, there is extensive regional collaboration, but several countries are struggling with declining student numbers, policy atrophy in the bureaucracy in the universities and national governments, the low status accorded to traditional librarians in the workforce, ageing professional cohorts, and diminishing government resources for university education and professional jobs. It is hard to find qualified library educators in Taiwan and Thailand. Nanyang University in Singapore, with Professor Schubert Foo, is faring much better.

There is no doubt that international colleagues value Australia’s contributions in international forums, and appreciate the worth of many innovative projects here. The number and variety of our international students (mostly from the Asian region) provides income and intellectual stimulus to Australian teaching and research. The ‘i-schools’ community is interested in continuing collaboration.

Two research centres in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University provide examples of projects which manage to assess the influence of the Internet on library development. They are the Centre for Community Networking Research (ccnr.net.au) and the Information and Telecommunications Needs Research group (www.sims.monash.edu.au/research/itnr).

At Tsukuba I presented a paper by the staff of these centres (including Don Schauder and Kirsty Williamson) on ‘Discerning the future of information science education through community networking research and practice’. The paper covered five of our main themes: collaborative technologies and e-research; user-centred design and the knowledge commons; social network analysis and community-based organizations; community knowledge, civil society, development informatics and e-democracy; and study of human information-seeking, communication, and telecommunications behaviour.

Official measures of the number of plum blossoms on show around Tsukuba estimated 30% of trees in full bloom. (The progress of the flowers is plotted like the weather forecasts). By analogy it is possible to think of library education – harnessing the power of computer networks fully -- on the verge of display as well. Sharing news of recent international trends and strategies, understanding the importance of related research, and continuing discussion with committed institutions, led us to a positive, collaborative, emergent and appealing image of the future.

Graeme Johanson

See CCNR images for an accompanying photo