ASSOCIATES (2005, March, v. 11, no. 3) - associates.ucr.edu

*Canadian Library Technician Program Listings Project*

by

Emma Wood
Library Technician
Alexander, Holburn, Beaudin & Lang
Vancouver, BC
ewood@ahbl.ca

The Library Technicians and Assistants Interest Group (LTAIG), a subsection of the British Columbia Library Association, is currently working on a comprehensive, annotated listing of library technician programs in Canada.

There are more than a dozen Library Technicians (LT) programs across Canada. The LTAIG committee, which includes graduates from schools in British Columbia and our neighbouring province, Alberta, thought it would be fascinating to learn about the similarities and differences between all these programs. While some information was available through LT program websites, we found the quality and quantity of information varied greatly. We decided to create a resource that would allow prospective LT students to compare “apples with apples” and provide a jumping off point for further research into this educational path.

I worked closely with two other committee members, Courtney Walker and Rob Golbeck, to develop a questionnaire, which we sent to program heads at each of the colleges, technical institutes and Cégeps that offer LT programs in Canada. We wanted to know about many aspects of each program, including coursework, tuition, distance learning options, class sizes, fieldwork components, and graduation/employment statistics.

At this stage in our project, we are collecting responses to our questionnaires, and in the next few months, we will compile all the information on the LTAIG website. We hope to eventually establish a moderated blog or bulletin board to facilitate discussion between prospective and current LT students, as well as alumni from across the country.

We are excited to be working on such an interesting project and look forward to sharing our findings with the rest of the library support staff community!

Watch for news about this project at http://www.bcla.bc.ca/ltaig.