25 June 2017

But I Don't Want to Code! A series of posts on emerging IT skills for librarians

This post is Number 1 of 8 in a series arising from a presentation at the New Librarians Symposium 8 on 25 June 2017 in Canberra.

The presentation is called "But I don't want to code! Three emerging IT skills for librarians (other than coding) and how to start developing them". My original pitch for this session was:

There is a lot of interest in coding right now, but coding is just one of many IT skills that could be relevant in your future career. This session is aimed at tech-savvy new professionals who want to increase their employability by combining library and IT skills, but may not be aware of the variety of skillsets within the IT profession and how these can be applied. You will be introduced to the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), an IT industry competency framework used in over 200 countries. The session will then look at three IT skills you could apply in libraries and other GLAM contexts: business process improvement, change management, and user experience analysis. Case studies of librarians practising these skills as part of their roles will be included, along with pointers to professional development pathways (with a focus on no- or low-cost options).
You can view the slides now on Speakerdeck and these will also be available for download via the NLS8 Figshare collection (to be published in July).



I knew there would be much more content on this topic than could possibly be included in the 20-minute talk at the event. These blog posts provide further reading and links to  professional development options, so that attendees can follow up and also so people unable to attend NLS8 have an opportunity to access the content.

Posts will be coming out daily starting on Sunday 25 June, which is the day I'll be presenting at NLS8. The contents of the full series will be:
  1. Overview (this post)
  2. There's more to IT than coding - an IT skills framework
  3. Introducing user experience
  4. Q&A with a librarian about user experience
  5. Introducing change management
  6. Q&A with a librarian about change management
  7. Introducing business process analysis
  8. Q&A with a librarian about business process improvement
Thank you to the organisers of NLS8 for proving me with the opportunity to present this work!