TRANSFERABLE SKILLS

Patricia Layzell Ward, Editor, Library Link

The focus of education and training for any occupation today is on the development of transferable skills. The skills that we learn that can be exported into other occupational roles - which is essential when few people are likely to want, or be able, to stay in the same career track for their working life.

During the London Online Conference I had the pleasure of an excellent interview with Wendy Beecham, Managing Director of Sweet and Maxwell, the leading law publisher. She is launching Westlaw a new online service and the press handout indicated that she focussed on the needs of users. Here was someone who understood the values of librarians. In the course of the interview she spoke of being a law librarian and what this had brought to her career development.

It started a train of thought about the way that others who had been librarians or information professionals had moved into other roles. One of the high profile examples from the UK is Carol Galley who once worked in an information department, but who had risen to be head of Mercury Asset Management, a large financial company in the City of London. In Norway, the Head of the National Library, Ben Rugaas became a Minister in the Norwegian Government. In Australia Dr Alison Crook, former head of the New South Wales Public Library, was the Australian Woman of the Year and moved into the private sector and state government; and Professor Mairead Browne became a Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Technology Sydney. These are but a few examples of people moving up and taking skills with them, which were developed as library or information professionals.

So what skills and understanding do we gain from professional education and training and from working in the field? One of the most important must be that of using an unfashionable term, that of service to the user or client. In days when �customer care� can be viewed cynically as it is practised in the commercial sector, we do work to identify and match the needs of our �customers� and gain feedback as to whether we have been successful. We know that we don�t exist without them - whether they are visiting the service in person, or using it remotely. To do this effectively we have to gain an understanding of the individual - this requires good communication skills, particularly given the diversity of users. Their needs might be meet from an ever increasing range of sources, and so we have to keep ahead of what is available, continual updating is needed whether it be the latest novels, or sci-tech databases. To this can be added the new role of finding the most cost-effective way to fulfil the need - we are becoming increasingly aware of the costs - to the user and the service. One of the group of skills that was said to be becoming redundant in the late 1970�s was that of cataloguing and classification - and to the regret of many its importance was downgraded in the curriculum. But today these basic skills are of great value in proving web-based services and in searching the Internet. Perhaps one of the most important groups of skills and knowledge gained along the way is that of management. We manage a range of resources and most have the opportunity to develop the skills that range from organising the work of porters to constructing budgets that have a long row of 000�s.

In the marketing literature from the ILS schools some provide examples of alumni that can be role models for careers in the field, and the further opportunities in the wider job market. But not all do and that may be one reason why the schools are not attracting the wider field of applicants from which they would like to select. Yet the ILS schools provide an excellent foundation of transferable skills.

Are there other examples of people who have moved up the career ladder and into other roles where they have used their transferable skills? And would anyone like to add to the list of transferable skills that can be gained from qualifying courses?

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