Impact : Journal of the Career Development Group

Editorial: Education and Democracy

This issue has two major themes running through it.

The first theme of this issue is the importance of education to our profession. We are learners ourselves through CPD (from conferences to informal networking) and we are educators through the increasing importance of integrating and utilising teaching and training skills in our every-day work. Both aspects are of equal importance as if we're not up-to-date ourselves we cannot pass on our new skills learned to our users and organisations.

For those of us who find it hard to get away from our respective desks and lament the lack of available-to-buy course papers for many events we know we'll never get to attend conference season can be somewhat of a trial. Hence the decision over this and the next issue to bring UmbelLA (The LA's bi-annual training jamboree) to you wherever you are. While we can't publish full papers (as I write this some of the Speakers are still writing them so you'll appreciate the difficulty!) of our sessions we can publish introductory articles from the Speakers on the major issues they are addressing. So this issue is UmbrelLA articles on Equal Opportunities; Changing syllabi of LIS Schools; Problems affecting the one-person library service; CPD on a virtual campus. More next issue!

The second theme is the need for participative democracy between the grassroots of the profession and the hierarchy. There's been a lot of positive debate going on over the last few months on the LA Solo and Workplace lists to name but two, as a result the LA experimented with an on-line discussion board on pay and conditions recently where Bob McKee posted responses to the issues raised by the participants. This was definitely a move forward and is greatly to be applauded, but the next question becomes what actually happens as a result of this, what input the grassroots membership has to initiatives arising out of it, what the timescales are, and how can it all be made as participative as possible. We can only take part in and contribute to debates we realise are happening. If you missed all of this Peter Fairbrother summarises what's been happening on low pay since Impact's first article exploring this subject a few months ago.

In this issue we also continue to look at qualifications relevant to our profession, such as the Institute of Learning and Teaching qualification. This qualification has had a high profile in the professional press in the last couple of months, so for those of you in higher education newly aware of it please note that the initial entry route for experienced staff closes on 30 September 2001 - so don't delay!

Isabel Hood