Surveying knowledge and skills in the health sciences: results and implications.

The MLA Knowledge and Skills Task Force was appointed in May 1989. The task force decided to survey a sample of the membership to define the knowledge and skills required for competent professional performance and to enable MLA to establish educational policies which would ensure acquisition and maintenance of the necessary knowledge and skills throughout a professional career. This report presents the initial findings of the survey, upon which MLA's educational policy statement, Platform for Change, is based.

Beyond the classroom: self-direction in professional learning.

Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing profession, the context for professional thinking among medical librarians is changing. Competent performance increasingly is linked with the educational efforts of self-directed adult learners. This paper examines strategies that facilitate self-direction, including skills development, organizational learning, learner-based decision making, and alternative teaching models. The analysis provides the basis for a recommended agenda for redesign and development of educational programs.

Organizational change in the Medical Library Association: evolution of the continuing education program.

"Change" is a critical dimension of contemporary experience. Library associations are not exempt, and they change in ways similar to other organizations. According to some authorities, four phases typify the process: diagnosis, design, implementation, and incorporation. Focusing on changes in the Medical Library Association's longstanding program of continuing education, the authors utilize the "phase framework" to chart that association's movement from a management system depending primarily upon volunteers to one in which professional staff figure prominently. The historical review serves a heuristic purpose for individuals and institutions in identifying characteristic features of the change process.