Editors’ preface

This chapter discusses the role of the academic and practitioner in ensuring that issues and developments within the field are articulated for future professionals. It outlines the creation and implementation of a specific ‘Literature and its Readers’ unit for undergraduate and postgraduate students. It then examines the unit's contents and the reaction of both practitioners and students to the unit.

Introduction

During the academic year 2000–2001 the undergraduate programme offered by the Department of Information and Communication at Manchester Metropolitan University was reviewed. During this process, a colleague (Margaret Kendall) and I re-evaluated our teaching and came to the realization that our joint experience and interests could be used to structure a unit that would enable our students to follow the link from author to reader and discuss the issues involved in reader development.

Margaret and I worked together to design a unit which would meet both the academic requirements of the university and the professional standards required by CILIP accreditation – and would, we hoped, prove enjoyable, provocative and challenging for our students. This chapter will examine the unit in detail and report on the responses from students, external examiners and practitioners.

Background

Web page design, knowledge management, information auditing, information and communication technologies, search engines, information systems design, financial management, human resources management, legislation, political and governmental information, information access, information retrieval, censorship, surveillance, privacy, confidentiality, information for education, health, business, information literacy … and on and on.

The above are just some of the areas of professional expertise our undergraduate and postgraduate students have to address during their time at university. It is breathtaking in its range and scope, and sometimes seems like a helter-skelter of essential knowledge, understanding and skills. Somewhere there also has to be space for students to take time to pause and reflect on the benefits and joys of works of imagination to individuals. This was something we aimed to address with our new unit.