Fiesole: Retreating to Move Forward

Article by Maria Bonn

Senior Lecturer, Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois

In April of this year, I had the good fortune to attend the Fiesole Collection Development Retreat in Cambridge, England. It was good fortune because Cambridge is graced with both historical and architectural charm; because it’s just plain fun to drink bitter beer (ideally accompanied by salt and vinegar “crisps,” what we in the U.S. call chips) while watching undergrads and tourists punt by on the Cam; because it’s thrilling to share spaces with the likes of Stephen Hawking, Watson and Crick, and Richard Feynman; but it was also fortunate because of the chance to immerse myself in three days of concentrated and intelligent discussion on the future of libraries and publishing. The Fiesole retreat has been organized for the past fourteen years by the Casselini bookselling family in close collaboration with the Charleston conference, bringing together their partners from both the supplier and the distributor side, encouraging them to think together about the best ways to both survive and thrive in an ever-changing information world.

The theme for this year’s retreat was “Succeeding in the Next Decade.” My contribution to this theme was speaking on new directions in library education and training on a panel entitled “Big Libraries, Big Visions: New Roles for Librarians.” I was happy to be both sharing new ways in which Library and Information Schools are guiding their students and to be learning about the needs felt by many sectors of the information industry, and, of course, to learn about many cool projects along the way. If I had kept a tally of recurring points of reference and topics throughout the retreat, many marks would have appeared next to words like publishing, data curation and use, privacy, discoverability, scholarly communication, and rights. Many other things were discussed in both presentations and over lunch (fish and chips, shepherd’s pie and other British specialties like sushi), but these were touchstones.

My own presentation focused on educating Information School students to support scholarly communication, manage and provide research data services, work as publishers, and support online and open education. I tried to map these areas onto trends in the job market and to what we know about the priorities of the directors of large research libraries (as documented by the recent Ithaka report on its survey of library directors found here: http://sr.ithaka.org/research-publications/ithaka-sr-us-library-survey-2013). As the retreat progressed, I found myself wanting others to do the same. As an Information educator with the career interests of my students at heart, I wanted to see the way in which these areas of interest and need expressed by high level professionals translates into patterns of recruiting and hiring that impact Information education itself.

I cannot say that anyone handed me a clear road map. The paths of Information education sometimes feel as labyrinthine as the cobblestone streets of Cambridge. But I left infused with a sense of things happening and was reminded of the importance of attending smart and timely professional gatherings. Charting the path forward is the work of both educators and students. Both sides need to attend to the professional conversation as they emerge and to work on curricular programming and individual courses of study that will support interesting, fun and even profitable areas of information work. And, if we all succeed, in helping to make the world a better place.

 Correction May 9, 2014
An earlier version of this article included an incorrect link to the Ithaka library survey.