Values. Bates (1999) writes about the values of information professionals according to the applied and pure science levels of information science and contrasts these with the value-system of librarianship. She writes that the applied level of information science tended to follow the "value-neutral" science or engineering model where the value is in getting the job done well without any explicit value-laden objectives. At the pure science level, the value is more in finding the truth (or multiple truths) about an information problem regardless of personal agenda. Bates notes that the removal of political issues from scientific work has enabled information professionals to communicate across political boundaries and diverse political philosophies. She contrasts this value-neutral stance of science with the service-oriented and empowerment-oriented value system of librarianship where the goal is "to produce a certain desirable social result" (p. 11). Bates notes that this value-laden goal suits the varying mix of values of different nations and is appropriate when dealing with particular circumstances of each nation.

Upon reflection on this contrast of values between information science and librarianship, I have come to see that the values of neutrality and service need not be incompatible with each other when I see how values work at different levels and areas of solving information problems. There is a scientific core to information problems that require detachment from political and or religious views and from personal agendas. But information problems also have social contexts that call for producing desirable social results and these can only be accomplished when information professionals are dedicated to serving and empowering information users.

I also have come to see how "value-neutral" need not mean "value-free" when considering the intermediary function of information professionals. Taylor (1986) writes that "we are making judgments of value continuously - both on the system side and on the user/client side of the interface" (p.49). In the same vein, Sutton (1996) comments that "the library as opinion piece is a good thing; and, in fact, it is the quality of the opinion that separates a great collection from a mediocre one" (p.135).

Bates, in the same article mentioned above, also throws in the value of humor into the values shared by information professionals. I guess that those who can deal with both detachment and attachment in their work are in the best position to laugh at themselves as well as at their own professions and still be passionate about their work.

Skills. In going through the phases of the information life cycle, I became more aware of the technical, conceptual, social, economic, and political skills needed by information professionals to perform and think through the activities of creating, collecting, organizing, retrieving, and using information. For example, to participate actively in solving information problems in the digital age, information professionals need at least some basic technical skills in operating and using computers, conceptual skills in thinking about networked, distributed information, social/communication skills in understanding and interpreting user needs in a digital environment, administrative skills in managing the costs of providing digital information resources, and political skills in navigating/negotiating between competing political interests around an information issue.

KnowledgeAn information professional needs to share some common mental models and processes to serve as common frameworks in defining and solving information problems. One such model is this metaphor of an information life cycle from creation to use and back to creation. One needs to know the phases, processes, and actors in the lifecycle. These mental structures become common reference points when discussing information problems with a diverse community of information professionals.