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How the DATALIS Project’s Design Thinking Approach Is Revolutionizing Library and Information Science Education

The DATALIS project, part of the broader LEADING initiative funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, has been pivotal in shaping the future of professional education in the Library and Information Science (LIS) field. This blog post delves into a recent discussion led by Erik Mitchell from UC San Diego, alongside other project leads Jane Greenberg (Drexel University), Rachel Frick (OCLC), John Wheeler (University of New Mexico) as well as Kevin Popovic (Innovation Funnel lead). They explored the successes of LEADING and methodologies of the DATALIS sub-project, particularly its use of the Innovation Funnel and Design Thinking to foster collaboration, problem-solving, and community engagement among LIS professionals.

The Innovation Funnel: A Catalyst for Change

At the heart of the DATALIS project is the Innovation Funnel model which uses a Design Thinking framework to identify innovative solutions to a given problem.

Kevin Popovic, the model’s designer and a key collaborator, created a four stage process (LEARN, WORK, DEVELOP, PRESENT) which helps participants find out about (LEARN), explore and gain insight in a problem space (WORK) with the goal of developing potential solutions and prototypes (DEVELOP) and the sharing of these prototypes broadly for feedback (PRESENT).

Community of Practice: Building a Sustainable Framework

The LEADING project has not only focused on individual learning but has also nurtured a robust community of practice amongst the 150+ fellows, mentors and project collaborators involved in LEADING.

This aspect was crucial in developing a sustainable model that supports continuous professional development in the LEADING project and set the stage for a deeper exploration of professional development pathways through DATALIS.

Learning from the Community: Key Takeaways from the DATALIS Initiative

The panelists all commented that the DATALIS project saw active engagement and input from the community – the result of which included a diversification of problems and prototypes from the original problem statement.

The discussions highlighted how integrating community feedback into every phase of the project ensured that the solutions developed were not only innovative but also inclusive and representative of the community’s needs.

Looking Ahead: The Future of LIS Professional Education

As the LEADING initiative concludes, the insights and methodologies from the DATALIS project were intended to provide a blueprint for future educational endeavors in the LIS field. The updated problem statements and prototypes are represented within the PRESENT summary. As you will see from these prototypes – the solution space expanded to include advocacy, community engagement, online peer-mentorship pairing apps and financial and organizational professional development support models.

Next steps with LEADING

As the LEADING project wraps up its work, the team is working to publish our curriculum, identify future innovation areas in professional education and report out on the impact of our work together over the past five years.

For more detailed insights and ongoing updates, please see the LEADING project website as well as the DATALIS website.

Through our LEARN and WORK events, the DATALIS team and our 100+ contributors have explored professional education in libraries and explored problem spaces and potential solutions. As we move into DEVELOP we have refined and consolidated Problem statements so that they can serve as the foundation for the next phase of design thinking.

To analyze these problem statements we started by roughly categorizing the problems from our WORK sessions into categories.

Problem category	# of WORK problem statements
Advocacy	1
Creating capacity	5
Communication	1
Experiential learning	2
Hiring practices	1
Increasing diversity	2
Increasing DEI awareness	1
Mentorship	2
Professional organizational value	1
Resourcing for professional development	3
Skill development / Skilling up	4
Grand Total	23

Table 1: Categories of problem statements identified through the WORK sessions

Based on these initial categories the research team studied the problem statements and synthesized statements to create a refined set to serve as the foundation for our DEVELOP workshop:

Problems created through analysis of WORK data

Problem: How do we help LIS professionals and students, advocate for the field and their own skills to emphasize the importance of information science globally?
Categories: Advocacy, LIS skills

Problem: How might we help library leadership create opportunities for play and skill development as part of work to enable future success, increase job satisfaction, and improve workplace culture?
Categories: Creating capacity

Problem: How might we help library learners define, explore and iterate their own learning journey to cultivate a culture of learning for organizational health and professional joy?
Categories: Creating capacity, Job satisfaction

Problem: How does the library improve outreach and communication to learners so that they are more informed about professional development opportunities?
Categories: Communication and outreach

Problem: How might we enable LIS students to pursue more opportunities in their early careers in order to build their self-confidence, increase empowerment and help them build professional networks?
Categories: Experiential learning, Early Career

Problem: How can we modify library approaches to recruitment to create pathways that build a more diverse workforce?
Categories: Hiring practices, Increasing Diversity

Problem: How can we help library workers incorporate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion lenses into their professional development work to create a more inclusive work environment and positively impact services for library users?
Categories: Increasing DEI awareness

Problem: How might we create mentorship opportunities that support library workers at every stage of their career and help them meet the constantly changing needs of users?
Categories: Mentorship, Early Career, Mid Career, Late Career

Problem: How might we help library workers in under-resourced communities access learning and experiences that address the specific challenges they face to improve these career pathways?
Categories: Creating capacity, Under-resourced communities

Problem: How might we help library/information workers and graduate students build skills in fields connected to their work (e.g. data science, community organizing, sustainability) in order to advance their career in meaningful ways?
Categories: Skill development / Skilling up, Connected disciplines

Problem: How might we better develop management and leadership skills in library workers to improve organizational culture and effectiveness?
Categories: Leadership development

Empowering LIS Professionals: Insights from the LEADING Project

Refined Problem statements for DEVELOP