Overview

ALIA’s Professional Pathways Initiative brings together all sectors of library and information services (LIS) in Australia, united in the goal of a valued, supported and diverse library and information service with the skills, knowledge and ethics to deliver library and information services that anticipate and meet the needs of the community. 

Attention is focused on the skills, knowledge and ethics needed to be a library and information professional, and then considers what pathways into and through library and information careers might support LIS professionals into the future. 

Roadmap

The Professional Pathways roadmap outlines the process of how we will get to where we want to go. There are four stages in this process.

Stage 1: Discover

Stage 2: Develop

Stage 3: Implement

Stage 4: Embed

 

Professional Pathways Stage Diagram

The journey so far

In the Discover phase we focused on building the evidence base which included:

  • Initial research and consultation as part of ALIA’s Future of LIS Education Project
  • Consensus that issues wider than just LIS education, and a broader project for the LIS profession needed.
  • Professional Pathways launched in November 2019 with Consultation draft and series of Town Hall meetings
  • Professional Pathways Board constituted in mid-2021 to provide sector representative strategic oversight
  • Dr Gillian Hallam commissioned to research and write Technical Report. Read the full report.

Following the Technical Report the Professional Pathways Board made four recommendations, including to develop a whole-of-career framework, which started the development phase.

Develop phase 

The Develop phase started with a series focus groups to progress these recommendations. You can read the full report from the focus groups here. The findings from these focus groups and the Technical Report were then pulled together into the initial draft framework which will be used as a basis for further development.

Draft Framework

We are starting workshop consultation to further develop the draft framework. The final framework will be able to be used by people from different backgrounds and different career stages, as well as providing wider support to the sector and employers.

The draft framework consists of three domains:

  • Foundational domains
  • Professional knowledge domains
  • Active professionalism domains

Read more about the framework

 

What’s next

We now enter an extended period of consultation where we will utilise different methods to ensure a wide range of constructive input as we work with the LIS to further develop the Framework and address some of the fundamental questions still to be answered about future pathways into and within the profession.

The first phase of consultations was completed from July – November 2022. The second phase of consultation will commence in mid 2023.

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