Exploring Becoming, Doing, and Relating within the information professions

Abstract

Professional identity in Library and Information Sciences (LIS) in the United States and Canada is often defined by education, particularly the Masters in Library and Information Science(s) or its equivalent (MLIS). However, education is not the only attribute expected of an information professional. Anteby et al. (2016) developed three lenses for examining professions: Becoming, Doing and Relating. Each of these lenses provides a different view of how professional status is achieved and maintained and reflects the evolution of professional identification over the past century. Given the lack of any recognized definition within LIS, applying the lenses to “information professions” in general provides a framework to discuss professional identity. In order to understand how the LIS community defines information professional an exploratory survey was developed for information professions in the United States and Canada that included an open-ended question about professional identity. The survey was taken by more than 700 information professionals 2014–2015, and includes responses from MLIS students, information professionals with and without an MLIS (or an equivalent degree), LIS educators, retired professionals, and professionals with an MLIS working outside the field, but still active within the community. The responses uncovered a wide range of definitions, which reflected the concepts of lenses of professional status as presented by Anteby et al. However, not all of the definitions were easily assigned to a single lens. The findings do identify other important questions to consider. Why is there such a range of how we define LIS professional? What does this mean about how we interact with society in our professional roles? What impact might this have on how we are viewed by the larger society?