European exchange untangles technology from information
by Katrina Kalleske
For almost three decades and across three continents, UniSA’s Sue Myburgh has explored education for librarians and information professionals, against an ever-changing background.
The enormous technological challenges of the past decade have given her plenty of food for thought, and have even landed her in one of the world’s richest food provinces – Italy.
Senior Lecturer in UniSA’s School of Communication, Myburgh spent the end of 2008 in Parma, Italy, undertaking the first phase of a two-year Erasmus Mundus scholarship, furthering her Library and Information Science research.
An Erasmus Mundus scholarship is offered through the European Commission as an exchange program throughout the European Union, and now includes students and scholars from other countries such as Australia.
Myburgh’s
work on what is needed for modern information work captured the
interest of a colleague at the University of Parma. In January 2008,
Myburgh presented a paper in Parma on the topic, and was then
nominated for the program. She spent three months at Parma at the
end of last year and will do the second three months towards the end
of 2009.
"It was exciting to work in one of Europe’s oldest universities and to exchange ideas with other colleagues," Myburgh said.
"Technologically speaking, it has become the custom in the field of Library and Information Science to use technology to simply do what has always been done a little faster and for the most part, more accurately.
"There has been an increasing perception that librarians need to become technologists or even computer scientists. But the essential work of librarianship is to be able to supply the information recorded in documents to whoever needs it, for whatever purpose.
"Ultimately, this is the social role of the profession – to solve society’s information problems, not their technological problems. For the most part however, information is confused with technology but technology is simply the tool that is able to facilitate the transfer and understanding of information."
During her time in Parma, Myburgh undertook research with colleague Prof Anna Maria Tammaro as well as many top international experts in the field of Library and Information Science.
"This is important work, both in Europe and in South Australia," Myburgh said.
"If South Australia wants to create a knowledge economy, it needs to adopt a wider view of the phenomenon of information accessibility and interchange."
In addition to her research at Parma, Myburgh also gave five classes to a group of international students who are studying their Masters in Digital Library Learning.
This actually included a previous UniSA student of hers who was also in Parma under the Erasmus Mundus program.