Abstract

This study was undertaken to meet more fully the demands for improved training of library personnel, occasioned by the rapidly changing roles and functions of libraries as they try to adapt to the vast social, economic and technological changes currently in progress in the Korean society. The specific purpose of this research is to develop a standard curriculum at the batchelor's level that will properly equip the professional personnel in Korean libraries for the changes confronting them. This study started with the premise that to establish a sound base for curriculum development, it was necessary first to determine what concepts, knowledge, and techniques are required for professional library personnel to perform it at an optimal level of efficiency. Explicitly, it was felt that for the development of useful curricula and courses at the batchelor's level, a prime source of knowledge should be functional behaviours that are necessary in the job situation. To determine specifically what these terminal performance behaviours should be so that learning experience provided could be rooted in reality, the decision was reached to use a systems approach to curriculum development, which is an attempt to break the mold of traditional concepts and to approach interaction from an open, innovative, and product-oriented perspective. This study was designed to: (1) identify what knowledge and techniques are required for professional library personnel to perform the job activities in which they are actually engaged, (2) to evaluate the educational needs of the knowledge and techniques that the professional librarian respondents indicate, and (3) to categorise the knowledge and techniques into teaching subjects to present the teaching subjects by their educational importance. The main data-gathering instrument for the study, a questionnaire containing 254 items, was sent to a randomly selected sample of library school graduates working in libraries and related institutions in Korea. Eighty-three librarians completed and returned the questionnaire. After analysing the returned questionnaire, the following conclusions have been reached: (A) To develop a rational curriculum rooted in the real situation of the Korean libraries, compulsory subjects should be properly chosen from those which were ranked highest in importance by the respondents. Characters and educational policies of, and other teaching subjects offered by, the individual educational institution to which a given library school belongs should also be taken into account in determining compulsory subjects. (B) It is traditionally assumed that education in librarianship should be more concerned with theoretical foundations on which any solution can be developed than with professional needs with particulars and techniques as they are used in existing library environments. However, the respondents gave the former a surprisingly lower rating. The traditional assumption must be reviewed. (C) It is universally accepted in developing library school curricula that compulsory subjects are concerned with the area of knowledge students generally need to learn and optional subjects are concerned with the area to be needed to only those who need it. Now that there is no such clear demarcation line provided in librarianship, it may be a realistic approach to designate subjects in the area rated high by the respondents as compulsory and to designate those in the area rated low as optional. (D) Optional subjects that were ranked considerably higher in importance by the respondents should be given more credits than others, and those ranked lower might be given less credits or offered infrequently or combined. (E) A standard list of compulsory and optional subjects with weekly teaching hours for a Korean library school is presented in the fourth chapter of this report.

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