1. Non-Walked Fields: Mexican Library Education Opportunities "One Size No Longer Fits Everyone" - Panel: Judith Field, Jesús Lau, and Ken Haycock Transborder Library Forum, February 22, 2007 – Thursday 11:30-12:30
Jesús Lau, Ph.D. /
Director, USBI-VER Library, and Coordinator, UV Virtual Library
Universidad Veracruzana / DGB
Veracruz, México

2. Topics General Introduction Library school challenges
Employment market
Transborder hiring of librarians
LIS school opportunities

3. Mexican Snapshot 100 million inhabitants
Largest Spanish-speaking country
A quarter of the US territory
14th world economy – GDP
7th in tourism
Largest immigration output to US
Middle income country
With the largest library system in Latin America

4. Library Statistics Public……………. 7,200 Academic………...1,200
INEGI, 2006 / SEP 1999
Public……………. 7,200
Academic………...1,200
School…………….5,400
Special………………230
Librarians…………4,000
Library Schools………10

5. Library Education History
Dates back to 1924
Oldest LIS school 1945
There were only two schools located in Mexico City until 1970
There has been a good growth in the last five years
Library education is mostly traditional
Except distance LIS education (2 programs)

6. US Library Role Library theory and practice are based on US cannons
Foreign library degrees are from US universities
There was a special library scholarship program in the 1970s-1980s for US universities
US Franklin library played an important
promotional role

7. Graduates´ Profile Strength: Bibliographic skills
Material organization oriented
Limited skills in:
Management
English
Computer use
Communication: oral and written

8. Schools Need to… Change teaching methods Update curricula
Broaden programs to cover more employment markets
Attract more competent students
Increase their budgets
Integrate IT to the curriculum

9. Librarians´ Challenges
Transform libraries into learning organizations
Face constant demand change
Adopt new organizational strategies
Offer new and more relevant services
Offer distant learning information services

10. Crossborder Hiring of Librarians
Mexican librarians come to US to work
Their degrees are not fully recognized
There is a need for an international accreditation scheme
Programs may need to be homologated
A good pattern is the European Bologna project

11. Foreign Degrees Are not Recognized
Degrees from abroad universities are not officially recognized
There is a lengthy, almost impossible, process to get government recognition
However, in practice, it does not matter much
The annoyances are usually for government paperwork

12. Accreditation
There are no specific library accredited programs yet, unlike other fields
The country has a general evaluation system
Those who pass the evaluation can get better federal funding
Mexican Library Association (AMBAC) does not play a role in this process
There is a degree-holding guild who could play the legal role of accreditation (Colegio Nacional de Bibliotecarios)

13. Actors in the Library Scene
Only 22% academic directors have a library degree
Public and school libraries have almost no librarians
Libraries mostly directed by professionals with other backgrounds

14. Universities and Special Hire More Librarians
Most advanced libraries
Best budgets
Lead in technology
Higher salaries
More professional development opportunities

15. Society's Library Concept
A place for lending books
An administrative department
A place for students
Anyone can work at the library
A service that can be replaced by Internet
Salaries are low, more than in other professions

16. Personal Hiring Experience
Attract candidates from miles away
Recruiting is difficult and slow
Insufficient number of candidates
They prefer to work in their hometowns
Family culture ties them to their homes
Institutional contracting procedure is time limited

17. UV Requirements Vision Self management Service oriented
Communication skills
Master English
Information technology skills

18. Conclusions There is a need for more librarians
New education roads have to be created to non-library working professionals
Distance postgraduate education is good
A NAFTA library education accreditation scheme is needed
LIS schools have the great opportunity to meet the market demand in quality and quantity