The need and impact of learning “Personality Development & Communication Skills” in LIS education: a case study

This paper aims to probe the need and impact of teaching personality development, social and communication skills as part of Library & Information Science (LIS) education. The Master programme at the Department of Library & Information Science at University of the Punjab, Lahore was taken as a case to study in this regard as the Department started a full 3 credit hour course on ‘Personality Development & Communication Skills’ in 2007. To meet the objective of the study, a web-based survey was used for data collection. Those 4 sessions’ students who studied in this course were asked to respond to the survey. The findings revealed that overall the course had a meaningful influence on students’ personality growth, behaviour modification and social skills. However, written communication skills were not much improved. The majority of respondents acknowledged the need for extensive learning of social and communication skills for LIS professionals as part of LIS education. It is assumed that this study will raise awareness in this regard among other schools in the country and in the sister countries with comparable conditions.