The Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) has developed a set of resources to support the community on the issues of employability and graduate skills.
These resources include:
Literature review
This review examines the literature on current employability practice with a view to demonstrating the contribution of libraries to employability and the development of graduate attributes, situating libraries’ traditional information literacy role in the new broader academic skills landscape. The review was prepared by Megan Wiley (Librarian, Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama) on behalf of SCONUL in 2014, and then revisited by Megan a year later in a SCONUL Focus article on ‘How information professionals can support the development of employability skills.’
Graduate Lens on the SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy
Employability is an increasingly important issue for higher education institutions. There is value in the mapping of information skills and competencies against what is expected of graduates entering into the job market and, in the longer term, developing their careers.
InformAll has therefore devised a graduate employability lens for the Seven Pillars of Information Literacy, backed up by a report on how employability is perceived. As well as setting out the relationship between IL and employability, the lens raises awareness, for the benefit of employers and others at the interface between higher education and employment, of how relevant and often crucial information literacy is to meeting business goals.
The report is a detailed mapping of information skills and competencies against the expectations of employers. It includes interviews with subject-area experts and practical examples of good practice taking place at institutions. The report was prepared by Stéphane Goldstein, of InformALL and the CILIP Information Literacy Group, on behalf of SCONUL late last year.
Alongside his work on the graduate lens, Stéphane carried out a short review of the Seven Pillars model, which provides an assessment of how the model is perceived and what might be done in future to improve it. It concludes that the model has stood the test of time and that it remains useful. But in order for this usefulness to be maintained, the review makes a number of suggestions to help ensure that the model reflects evolving needs, adjusts to different contexts and, if need be, develops a flexible structure.
Case studies
SCONUL has also collected a number of practical examples from members on how they have actively contributed to reaching the employability goals at their own institutions. These resources are intended to be useful and informative as you work to enhance the employability and graduate skills of your students.
Visit SCONUL’s employability webpages