Innovation ... or instrumental drift? The “New Vocationalism” and information and library education in the United Kingdom

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Muddiman, Dave

Affiliations: Faculty of Information and Engineering Systems, Leeds Metropolitan University, Beckett Park Campus, Leeds LS6 3QS, UK

Abstract: Recent trends in UK information and library education are usually portrayed as innovations in response to changes in the labour market for library and information workers. This paper presents an alternative analysis which relates key developments to the growth of a “New Vocationalism” in British higher education. The elements of this new orthodoxy are identified and its influence on current programmes of Information and Library Studies assessed. Important consequences have, it is argued, ensued: a decline of specialised contextual study; an erosion of a social model of vocational preparation and an accompanying change of emphasis in the focus of professional information work. In conclusion, these trends are held to amount to an “instrumental drift” in UK information and library education.

DOI: 10.3233/EFI-1994-12205

Journal: Education for Information, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 259-270, 1994