ALA Competencies

I'll give an overview of my reaction from three sections from front to start for the ALA core competencies. 

1) Foundations of the Profession

This is perhaps the most interesting section as it somewhat flies in the face of the addage that libraries are a fundamentally shifting field; that old ways (reference, cataloging, physical materials) are dying; that the old ways and old guard must be left behind if libraries are to be sustainable.  On the other hand, it's not clear that the "ethics, values, and foundational principles" are what is changing.  This seems to be the central issue at the heart of much library literature covered at SI!  I would say that the skills of the "foundation of the profession": communication, analyzing complex problems, etc are as or more important than ever.  Knowing the history of libraries and history of human communication is perhaps useful as far as it informs TODAY's library issues.  Knowing current trends and issues, having a context to place any one library within is more important.

4) Technological Knowledge and Skills

Absolutely!  While an item like 4C, "The methods of assessing and evaluating the specifications, efficacy, and cost efficiency of technology-based products and services." may well fall under the jurisdiction of an IT department (I know this is somewhat rare in many public libraries), technology is one of the things I am asked about most at the library, by both patrons and colleagues.   While tech experts as we now know them are a somewhat new thing in society and seem to be seen as an isolated bunch, librarians can be a huge public help in offering education on technical skills, even basic computer literacy.  This seems to be the most demanded educational content  at AADL, my place of work.

8) Administration and Management

This is extremely interesting to me especially with respect to this course as there do seem to be administrative job openings out there, and all require experience, not just competency in this area.  It's possible to take courses on items like "human resources development", "budgeting (outside of collections" or "developing partnerships" but perhaps this is something that truly needs to be hashed out on the job (you can't quite do a project for a client where you truly have responsibility for these things.)  Gaining these competencies is something I'm interested in and is perhaps best gotten in high-demand, (relatively) demanding situations.