21st Century Skills for Students Libraries

After a brief holiday hiatus, I’m back and catching up on some reading that I stock piled just before the avalanche of Santa smorgasbording events hit two weeks ago. On the top of my pile is the December 18th issue of Time magazine (btw: this was a staple in my household growing up, but now I only occasionally skim it in the stacks or read it online) with the cover story How to Bring our Schools out of the 20th Century.

The article cites findings and recommendations from the New Commission of Skills of the American Workforce’s recently released study Tough Choices or Tough Times (executive summary available in pdf) and also lists key skills for 21st century students:

• Know more about the world
  
• Think outside the box
  
• Become smarter about new sources of information
  
• Develop good people skills

These sound like good recommendations not only for anyone involved in educating tomorrow's work force, but for any organization that works with students - especially libraries.

So what are key skills of the 21st century librarian? In looking at the list cited here, I think these four areas of emphasis do a pretty good job of covering the gamut with “thinking outside the box” and “becoming smarter about new sources of information” drawing a tie at the top of my list.

What’s on your 21st century skills list?

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