Computer programming in LIS education: a necessity?

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Beheshti, Jamshid

Affiliations: Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, McGill University, 3459 Me Tavish Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1Y1, Canada

Abstract: Contrary to the opinions of some educators, a fundamental knowledge of computer programming is very important for LIS students. An understanding of the syntactic and semantic structures of a language allows students to use the computer as a glass box rather than a black box. In addition, programming teaches students certain cognitive skills, which may be transferable to other domains such as cataloguing and classification. BASIC is viewed as the most suitable programming language for novices and an example of its application in a required LIS course has been provided.

DOI: 10.3233/EFI-1993-11204

Journal: Education for Information, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 123-136, 1993