engleski

Student perceptions of LIS programs and profession: Study among undergraduates in Croatia and Turkey

Library and Information Science (LIS) is a discipline in flux, therefore LIS education has been in transformation for quite a long time. It is a time for change and there is no doubt that change requires making strategic decisions across the discipline and LIS education is not an exception. Strategic decisions are to be taken based on data collected from related stakeholders. The aim of this paper is to explore student perceptions of LIS profession and LIS programs, as well as their motivations for enrolling in these programs, their career plans and expectations. Survey by questionnaire was conducted among final year undergraduate students at the Department of Information Management of Hacettepe University, Turkey and Department of Information Sciences at Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Osijek, Croatia. The data was collected from 69 questionnaires. Some similarities as well as differences were detected between the two student groups. Students from both countries believe that LIS profession plays an important role in the society (and will remain so in future) but that it does not enjoy high public status and is not financially rewarding. Students are generally satisfied with their choice of profession (although for a significant number of students LIS degree was not their first choice), the majority would recommend it to their friends and they are quite optimistic about employment opportunities. Dissatisfaction with their LIS program lies in most cases in insufficient amount of IT courses and practical training. Almost half of the Turkish students had some LIS related work experience prior to embarking on their studies unlike Croatian students. Two words (information and libraries) that first come to majority of students’ mind when they think of LIS profession were the same for both group. Both groups of respondents agreed that LIS profession is interdisciplinary and disagreed that it is a female profession.

LIS education, LIS profession, undergraduate students, perception, career plans, Croatia, Turkey

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