Connecting professional service to service learning: strengthening the relationship between academic libraries and library schools

Abstract

Service is one of librarianship's core values; librarians are charged with “maintaining and enhancing our own knowledge and skills, by encouraging the professional development of co-workers, and by fostering the aspirations of potential members of the profession.” [1] Most academic librarians are required to participate in professional service activities, which typically means involvement in professional organizations. However, while this mode of activity connects professional librarians and practitioners to their peers, it largely fails to connect them to future members of the profession, namely library school students. Over the last year, librarians at Binghamton University Libraries have partnered with the University of Missouri's School of Information Science & Learning Technologies to provide a service learning opportunity for students enrolled in the Principles of Cataloging and Classification course, permitting them to create metadata records for electronic capstone documents for Binghamton's digital repository. This project is designed to help students gain the practical experience needed for professional success. In this poster presentation, we will look at the impacts of this collaboration and also make the argument that through similar partnerships, academic librarians are not only able to fulfill their service obligation, but they can help to ensure the future of the profession by serving future librarians.