InfoMatters

US News put out another list of top careers this week. Apparently they determined there are 31 careers with exciting futures. Among those listed were:

The say average librarians make over $50k a year and are steeped in technology and research activities. If you get into usability (and Library Science is listed under that description as a relevant qualification) you can expect an average salary of over $90k and a warm glow from watching people happily interact with your products. I would not get too excited by this list (or any list, really); they also think hairstylists and locksmiths are top careers too. By your equals, ye shall be known. That said, it’s certainly encouraging to see these types of positions actually considered futuristic and rewarding. More importantly, it’s encouraging that the compilers notices that a degree in LIS might actually set you up for more than one great career.

The Council for Library and Information Resources is organizing a one day workshop on this topic next month in DC. I was asked to prepare a white paper of no more than 3000 words dealing with how education for LIS professionals might be impacted. You can now read a draft: Accelerating Learning & Discovery, comments welcome.

Back from the cattle-market that is the ALISE hiring conference (please people, don’t think that cornering a faculty member and thrusting your resume upon them is a good way of getting a job….someone must be telling you otherwise or there is no other way to explain this behavior), I note that there is now a digital edition of the CACM which looks good and in which an article by Jeannette Wing entitled: Five Deep Questions for Computing, includes the following:

What is Information?
What is Intelligence?
How can we build complex systems simply?

Funny, I thought these were information questions. In fact, coupled with the previous months issue where Ben Shneiderman spoke of computing as being in the game of accelerating discovery, you might be confused for wondering what truly are the differences between our fields? I make no broad claims to have the answer but I don’t wish to be thought of as a computer scientist. Maybe the information field should be asking: ‘What is computing?’