The ecology of tertiary-level LIS programmes in Hungary

Abstract

The library is an open system in constant interaction with its environment. This phenomenon often induces a series of profound changes within and outside the librarian profession, especially considering the present, rapidly developing user needs related to infocommunications. The librarian profession is expanding all around the world; new roles and jobs so far considered atypical are now emerging, as the research horizons of library and information science also keep widening. Faced with these multifunctional expectations, members of the library network cannot operate without librarians, and educational institutions cannot function in isolation from librarianship either. The paper analyzes recent environmental impacts affecting university-level library education in Hungary, and introduces its current system and framework, as well as the directions for its development. Modernization efforts at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest are discussed in greater detail. The paper evaluates how higher education responded to disciplinary and interdisciplinary competence development, in particular the efforts aimed at enhancing the synergic relationship between theory and practice; the elements of dual training (carried out jointly with the librarian profession); and the opportunities for student co-operation. The paper also examines the results of library and information science research supporting innovation. Based on statistical data, areas for intervention are identified which could lead to an increase in interest in library and information science studies and the librarian profession, and to a decrease in the number of those leaving the field. The study offers a complex view of not only tertiary-level LIS training, but also of the organically related Hungarian librarianship in early 2020, in an international context.