Project Background

The outcome of educational reforms in Armenia, Georgia and Uzbekistan greatly depends on the curricula being taught in the Universities, which is still precarious for ‘Library and Information Science’ studies. The subject is not in demand amongst high school graduates, and those who do undertake the course are not satisfied with the level of teaching and the knowledge obtained: most of the graduates do not get appropriate jobs. To illustrate the real situation in Armenian libraries here is some statistical data. The total number of the librarians working in public libraries is 2104. Of this only 11.5% are University graduates with a relevant degree and only 35.5% have a professional college diploma. In all public libraries from the rural areas only 79 staff members have higher education qualifications, and only 48 of these have a relevant university degree; 828 are college graduates from which 349 have professional college education. As a result library and information work in Armenia is making no significant progress. 
Georgia, like Armenia has been a full member of the Bologna Process since 2005. During the past 2-3 years very important reforms of education and science systems have been undertaken with the main goals being transformation to 3-cycle European academic degrees (bachelor, master, doctor), harmonisation with European systems of assessment (credits, qualifications), meeting European standards, rising quality assurance in education, lifelong learning, etc. A brief analysis of this process can be made from the documents of National Reports and the site of ‘Bologna Supporters’. Georgia’s experience of the past 2-3 years shows: (a) rising challenge for quality library services in higher education, including IT based services, information analysis, looking for new sources of information and knowledge, as well as new user-friendly library services; (b) introduction of Information Literacy curricula in several universities – mandatory courses for students of all subject categories; (c) reformation of LIS curricula. Often it is the case that demands on the library from university students and professors are much higher than current librarians can provide (languages, information technology skills, awareness of new resources, particularly electronic resources for education and science). From the other side, there is a rising demand for “new librarians” due to the process of reforming in public and academic education libraries ongoing in Georgia. 
There are around 14,000 libraries in Uzbekistan. Establishing cooperative library systems to develop active information connections between universities, libraries, information resource centres and electronic and virtual libraries creation which will provide the population with scientific, business and educational information is one of the important problems of the Republic. Obviously, reformation of the library and information sector is not available without development of library and information education, without high quality staff, who have to meet requirements which coincide with the requirements of the EU HE sector. As shown by recent polls among librarians many of them have not been using computers and Internet in their library services, and cannot develop electronic catalogues and other electronic resources. It is vital that input into this expansion of the training of library specialists must be done quickly so that the new structures comply from the outset with EU requirements. 
There are several considerable problems in teaching library, information and archives courses that are common to the three countries: (a) after the collapse of the Soviet Union, faced with economic problems and the transition to a market economy, librarianship was not a priority of the governments; (b) courses were based on Soviet library science and archive practices and programmes for LIS and archives are focused on techniques and technical processes, undervaluing the need for the wider knowledge of social processes, science, technology, etc, required to enable library, archive and information services to respond to contemporary demands; (c) courses have not yet fully incorporated the new areas of the disciplines that are common in Western Europe; (d) there is a shortage of modern LIS and archive teaching materials (electronic resources, sample PC applications); (e) pedagogical skills of the LIS and archive teachers and trainers tend to be didactic; (f) familiarity with quality standards is low; (g) these factors contribute to low levels of interest in potential students; (h) competence of teachers and students in the English language is not high, even though English is the dominant language in the discipline globally; (i) there is a shortage of relevant materials in the national languages; (j) no programmes offer lifelong learning or support career advancement for the existing large LIS workforce. It is obvious that introduction of the new curricula covering Library, Information and Archives Studies totally oriented to the EU experience is the only solution to make this profession prestigious and to attract talented and motivated students. Another important problem which is facing the library communities of the three countries is absence of any lifelong learning programmes and skill-advancing courses for these subjects. There is an increased number of librarians and archival workers that require thorough professional retraining. It is time to introduce new institutional structures for life long learners in LIS, based totally on the models in EU partner Universities. All partner country institutions share the same vision of meeting the economic, social and labour market needs of the changing environment through the development of a range of innovative LIS education curricula, thereby building an international reputation in the delivery of LIS degrees of high standing and quality. The need for modernized curricula and LLL in LIS was self-evident in the course of the project JEP 25008-2004 where many of the assumptions relating to the introduction of e-resources and a Virtual Learning Environment were based on librarians and information workers having been trained according to modern western curricula. Although LIS and Archives are academic subjects and this project is under curricular development, training in library and information science will enhance the management of the universities in the entire countries where these revised curricula are taught, so this project contributes additionally to university management. It will also contribute to the development of civic society in that librarians trained in university library schools work equally in public libraries.

TEMPUS JEP

Project Background