Trends and issues of LIS education in Asia

Abstract

This paper highlights major trends and issues of LIS education in Asian countries, based on content analysis of a series of international workshops held in Tokyo as a part of the LIPER (Library and Information Professions and Education Renewal) Project. We invited speakers from China, Korea, Sin-gapore, Taiwan, and Thailand, in order to improve our understanding of recent trends in LIS education in neighboring countries, anticipating that such understanding would be beneficial not only for the pos-sible reform of Japanese LIS education, but also for future collaboration in LIS education among Asian countries. Each invited speaker reported on his/her country in terms of the current situation in LIS edu-cation, qualification systems for librarianship, recent changes in curricula and job markets for certified librarians, and credit exchanges with nearby countries. Through content analysis of the presentations and discussion sessions, we identified the following common trends of LIS education in Asia: (1) elimination of the word â libraryâ from the names of LIS programs in order to attract students, (2) shift in the educa-tional level from undergraduate to graduate, (3) changes in core subject areas from an emphasis on man-ual-based collection development to ICT-based information/knowledge management, (4) depreciation of LIS education for school librarians (except in Thailand), (5) decreasing opportunities for new employ-ment in library markets due to over production of LIS graduates and economic recession, (6) low interest among well-educated graduates in seeking employment opportunities in the public library market, which is characterized as offering relatively low social status and wage levels compared to national and aca-demic libraries, (7) lack of understanding among employers to accept LIS graduates as capable knowl-edge workers, and (8) increase in the number of faculty with doctoral degrees, who prefer to teach cutting-edge courses rather than traditional library oriented courses.