NEW INFORMATION MANAGEMENT WORK IN A CHANGING WORLD - AN AUSTRALIAN SURVEY

This research investigated the knowledge, skills, formal qualification s and experience of successful applicants for a subset of the informat ion management jobs advertised in a daily newspaper in Sydney from Apr il to June 1996. The subset included jobs which were shaped by new inf ormation technology, which were not part of any established profession or career, and which utilised information management knowledge and sk ills of the type which may be gained through Library and Information S tudies (LIS) education. Some traditional LIS skills, most notably skil ls in organising and retrieving information and in assessing informati on needs were reported to be essential for many of the jobs. The jobs investigated were diverse as were the qualifications of successful app licants. The link between qualifications and job was often not obvious , which suggests that applicants may have needed to make the case for the appropriateness of their qualifications and experience. Thus LIS g raduates seeking such jobs need to prepare themselves to argue their a ppropriateness for them. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights res erved.