There has in recent years been a decline in the number of institutions in Australia offering formal library courses, and a decline in the number of academics employed in these library schools.  Ten universities now offer ALIA-accredited librarianship courses, and sixteen institutions offer technician level courses.  There are now less than 40 staff Australia-wide engaged in formal teaching of library studies in the tertiary institutions. One of the more concerning aspects of this is the reduced numbers of academics undertaking research in library studies.

Those wanting to undertake formal education as a librarian in Australia can choose between a first degree in an appropriate field, or a graduate course following an unrelated first degree.  While some of these courses still retain the word librarian in the title, there are also courses which have titles referring to Information Management, Knowledge Management, Information Studies and a number of similar variations which enable those successfully completing the course to apply for professional membership of ALIA. 

A small number of librarians in Australia undertake more advanced courses in librarianship, at Masters or PhD level.

Library technicians undertake a course at a technical college, at certificate or diploma level, for periods ranging from one to two years fulltime.  The technician courses aim to provide practical training in library activities such as cataloguing.

ALIA provides details of library education courses on its website (http://www.alia.org.au/education/ ).  In recent years ALIA has instituted a continuing professional development program, allowing ALIA members to formally record their CPD activities, and the first group to complete the three year program have recently been awarded a Certified Practitioner certificate.  Those signing up for the program keep a record of all professional education activities undertaken over the three year period, and provide evidence of this to ALIA.

A number of organisations no longer regard formal library qualifications as essential for employment in library positions.  The National Library of Australia is one such organisation.  The selection criteria for positions in this library no longer list library qualifications as mandatory for any position, and positions are not designated as "librarian".  While many new recruits do have library qualifications, there is increasing emphasis on recruiting people with research and other skills, with the library training being provided on the job as required.  While this surprises colleagues in many other libraries, it has not presented any significant operational difficulties in the library.

It is now also common in Australia is for librarians to be employed in other fields where their skills in organising information prove invaluable.  So there are now librarians employed as webmasters, metadata experts, knowledge managers, indexers and editors, to name but a few, where the basic skills of librarianship provide an excellent basis for the acquisition of more diverse competencies.
 

Contributed by: 
Sandra Henderson 
Manager, Research 
Coordination Support 
National Library of Australia 
(shenders@nla.gov.au)