Assessing information professionals in Dominican Republic: Are they prepared to deal with the new democratic libraries?

Abstract

Current information policies in Dominican Republic include the creation and development of libraries and information systems in a more effective way than ever in the country. One of the biggest concerns regarding these new democratic and modern libraries is to analyze whether the Dominican Republic has information professionals competent enough to deal with this new information system. This paper describes a thorough study of the Librarianship and Information Science (LIS) education in the country, as a first step to find out the needs and requirements for innovation in LIS education. Some of the topics analyzed are degrees and programs (in public and private universities), number of librarians and information professionals at graduate level, continuing education, a comparative overview with Latin American and Caribbean countries and conclusions. This article will show some of the results from a series of studies intended to enhance libraries and information infrastructure in Dominican Republic. ; The authors want to thank all the information professionals in the Dominican Republic who attended our meetings in August 2006 for evaluating and discussing LIS education and for the valuable information they gave to us, especially: Dulce M. Nunez (PUCMM), Lucero Arboleda (INTEC) and Miriam Michel (UNIBE). We also want to thank Kate Johnson and Toni Carbo for their thoughtful comments to this paper.