Describing the Elephant: What Is Continuing Professional Education?

Abstract

Continuing professional education (CPE) has been often defined in many different ways, which has often resulted in confusion. This paper attempts to place continuing professional education within the context of the whole education for librarianship. Using the fable of the blind men and the elephant as an analogy, the discussion explores the who, what, when, where, why and how of CPE and its relationship to the range of educational possibilities.