PNLA Quarterly, Vol. 63 No.3 Spring 1999
From the Editor
Libraries, Lifelong Learning, and the Land of the Adult
A recent editorial in a special issue on lifelong learning of the New Statesman (1998) reports that the biggest growth industry of the 20th century is education. It further states that this industry-including teachers, lecturers, students, pupils or ancillary staff-involves "something like a third of the population." Best and Eberhardt (1998) refer to the "Era of the Adult" to describe the baby boomers who are a large part of the population and "who will require adult education not only to improve basic skills or to receive job training, but also to help face a future that is more volatile, competitive, and complex than ever before." The literature is rich with statistics and substantive verification that continuing education (CE) is vital in all areas of employment. Libraries and librarians are key players in this growth industry. Lifelong learning has been central to the mission of all libraries and was reconfirmed by the American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy in 1989. Distance learning, the option for students to acquire education while remaining at a place separate from the educational institution, is an old idea that has undergone a major renovation with the rise of the World Wide Web and plays a significant role in the growth of CE. The summer 1998 issue of Library Trends and Jones (1998) offer inspiring overviews of the tremendous advances taking place in the field of distance education characterized by a multiplicity of forms and place. Video teleconferencing, web-based courses, virtual consortia, web-based databases--all provide newly expanded opportunities to integrate into distance education. Both CE and distance learning are not new to libraries, but the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web have given both a new venue and the ability to reach a vast audience not possible in the past. Remote users and the growth of CE - the Land of the Adult-challenge libraries to rethink their missions and services.Library support for distance learners encompasses all of the benefits of new technology-electronic databases and full-text databases available from remote sites, document delivery via fax or e-mail, electronic reserves (Sloan 1998). These innovations now provide the opportunity for the library to provide services to remote users and step out of the position of middleman. Librarians need to focus on the delivery of services with remote users a part of the picture. And librarians need to consider their own needs for CE to remain current in the rapidly changing information environment.
PNLA's commitment then to revise the mandate of the Continuing Education Committee and make the Chair a coordinator who works with the 1st Vice-President on conference programming is an important step in fulfilling PNLA's mission "for the development and support of libraries and librarianship in the Pacific Northwest." This is an exciting segment of the PNLA Action Plan (1998) that will be based on a survey of the CE needs of PNLA members. The Plan discusses the development of a workshop matrix to enable workshops to be offered in several locations. It proposes the investigation of distance education as a venue for creating a recognized CE credits program for all CE activities, and the CE workshop structure would be designed to support career advancement for members. A coordinated CE database for the PNLA region would include a regional CE calendar and resources guide as part of the PNLA web site. The central goal of this part of the plan would be to serve as a facilitator and coordinator for the sharing of CE programs across the region.
This is a very ambitious program. Yet it has the potential to meet the very significant needs of all of us to stay current in an ever-changing professional environment. The collaborative potential of this plan to serve our region is enormous. We all serve as educators in our own libraries and have our own areas of expertise that could provide an instructional base. Conference sessions, roving workshops, and distance education provide a myriad of possibilities. Consider signing up and signing on to this exciting program.
Literature Cited
Best, Fred and Ray Eberhard. 1990. Education for the "Era of the Adult." The Futurist, 24(3): 23-29.
Editorial. 1998. Let the people learn. New Statesman, 127:4411, pIII.
Jones, William G. 1998. Transforming Libraries: Issues and Innovations in Distance Learning. Spec Kit 234. Washington, DC: Assn. Research Libraries, 37p.
Ray, Gordon. 1998. PNLA Action Plan-1998-2000. PNLA Quarterly, 63(2):16-17.
Sloan, Bernie. 1998. Library Support for Distance Learning. Available online:
http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/~sloan/libdist.htm#LibWeb
Sue Samson, Humanities Librarian at The University of Montana, edits the PNLA Quarterly
Back to Table of Contents