Library and Information Studies Curriculum* Jamshid Beheshti, Ph.D. *Based on a presentation at the 27th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science, June 9 - 12, 1999. 1 Introduction Recent advances in computer and telecommunication technologies, particularly the introduction of the Web, have had a profound impact on the field of library and information studies (LIS). In response to these technological achievements, it is assumed that LIS programs throughout the United States and Canada have instituted major curriculum changes. Data from ALISE Statistical Report shows that in the past decade or so more than 50% of LIS programs have completely revised their curricula. Wiegand, however, have suggested otherwise. This exploratory study attempts to map the curricula of the ALA accredited LIS programs to provide a better understanding of the nature of LIS education as is currently prevalent in the United States and Canada. The mapping methodology is based on clustering keywords of individual course titles and course descriptions from each LIS program. Hence, the study provides a relatively accurate snapshot of the curricula through a concept intensity map of the subjects being presently taught in LIS programs. It is hoped that the map will contribute to discussions in designing a more cohesive LIS education. 2 Methodology The list of ALA accredited graduate programs available at ALISE provides links to all but four universities. Each link was followed up and the information pertaining to the Masters curriculum and related courses was downloaded into several files. Universities that had insufficient information about their curricula on their Web sites at the time of the study (August 1998) were excluded (as was Universite de Montreal due to linguistic constraints). As a result, a total of 44 MLIS programs have been included in this study. An exhaustive list of more than five thousand keywords was compiled from the merged files. Each word was examined and initially 512 words were chosen to represent meaningful subjects in the curriculum of the programs. The list was later modified by grouping, combining and deleting certain words, resulting in a list of 343 terms (keywords and phrases). Once the proper usage of all the keywords were determined, a large matrix consisting of words (or terms) and the names of universities was created. The matrix consists of binary numbers (0, 1) indicating the absence or the presence of a term for each program. The next step involved the creation of logical classes of concepts. The main purpose of this study is to determine intensities of concepts taught -- concentrations of subjects in the curriculum. The ASIS Thesaurus of Information Science and Librarianship was used as a guideline to regroup the terms into significant concepts. The final matrix, after several iterations and re-groupings, contained 57 concept. 3 Data Analysis Table 1, which demonstrates the intensities of the first 52 concepts, is arranged by the sum of the binary numbers (column 2). The mean, median and mode are also reported to show the distribution of each concept across the MLIS programs. As these numbers decrease so does the intensity, indicating that the amount of coverage of the concept decreases. For example, Figure 1 is a frequency distribution of the concept "technology", which has the highest intensity of any concept. The plot indicates that the concept "technology" is covered by all the 44 MLIS programs to a certain extend, with some programs devoting more coverage to this concept as reported in their course descriptions than others. In contrast, the coverage for the concept "communications" is evenly distributed among all programs (Figure 2). While the intensity analysis may be indicative of the depth of coverage, cluster analysis shows the relationships among concepts based on their intensity. SPSS was used to cluster the concepts together based on the distances between them in terms of number of occurrences. Concepts were arranged in order of their intensity and only those with a mean of 0.5 or more were used for clustering purposes. Table 2 shows the memberships of these clusters in more detail. Technology is in cluster 1, Management in 2, Organization of information and Database development in 3, Searching and Internet in 4, Collection development, Indexing, Government information, Biomedical information, Telecommunication and Reference in 5, Mathematical methods in 6, Sociocultural and Rare materials in 7, Non-print in 8, and all the other concepts are in clusters 9 or 10. It should be emphasized that the numbers associated with each cluster do not indicate the importance of the concepts, but rather simply show their relative positions and intensity treatments. 4 Conclusion The results show that the main knowledge and skill based competencies taught in the MLIS programs may be identified as:
Other concepts covered by many programs include HCI and AI, and to a lesser extend type-of-library and specialized topics. Technology is by far the most intense concept covered in all LIS programs, indicating a change in the MLIS programs from a few years ago. Although it affects every aspect of the curriculum, technology is not the only cause of change. Contrary to Wiegand's suggestion, the changes in the curricula might be more profound. As we move towards the digital information, the concept of organization (of information) is intensely covered by LIS programs, followed by collection development (Wiegand's "acquire"), and to a much lesser extend preservation (perhaps of paper, with an eye on preservation of digital collections). Wiegand's last concept "circulation," however, does not have the same coverage as a century ago. Frank Hatt once wrote (1976):
Circulation, which may refer to the traditional reference, is treated with much less intensity than specialized information concepts such as government and biomedical information, partly due to the effect of technology, but mostly due to a more fundamental change in library and information studies. This change is a result of a shift from librarianship to information science. Whereas the traditional librarians would simply point the reader to the correct shelf and the right book in the library and then "tiptoe quietly away," in today's digital world, the actual information has to be transmitted to the user. While librarians and information professionals have managed warehouses of documents (in any format) in the past, they now need to select, organize, retrieve and transmit (SORT) the appropriate information to the right user. The LIS curriculum seems to be moving towards this direction. Although traditional concepts are still intensely covered, newer areas are gradually moving up the concept intensity scale; database development, mathematical methods, non-print media, HCI, and AI. These shifts may eventually necessitate a change in the name of the discipline to information studies. References Aldenderfer, Mark S. & Blashfield, Roger K. (1985). Cluster Analysis. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications. ASIS Thesaurus of Information Science and Librarianship. (1994). Jessica L. Milstead, ed. Medford, NJ: Learned Information, Inc. Association for Library and Information Science Education. (1997). Statistical Report. Raleigh, NC: ALISE. Buttlar, Lois & DuMont, Rosemary. (1996). Library and information science competencies revisited. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 37(1): 44- 62. Dresang, Eliza T. (1999). Education for Youth Services Specialization in Librarianship: Background Paper. April. http://www.fsu.edu/~lis/faculty/pubs/dresang2.html Hatt, Frank. (1976). The Reading process: A framework for analysis and description. London: Clive Bingley. Melton, Marissa. (1999). The Modern M.L.S. degree: Library schools today are turning out webmasters. Online U.S. News. www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/beyond/grad/gbmls.htm Rehamn, S., Karim, N.S.A., & Chaudhry, A.S. (1998). Differentiated compentencies for graduate and undergraduate levels: needed transformation of the information study programs. Education of Information 16(1): 9-28. Robbins, Jane, B. Curriculum reform in library and information science education. In: Library and Information Studies Education in the United States. (1998). Loriene Roy & Brooke E. Sheldon, ed. Washington: Mansell. pp 17 - 31. The Council of the American Library Association. (1992). Standards for Accreditation of Master's Programs in Library and Information Studies. Chicago: CALA. Wiegand, Wayne A. (1999). Core Curriculum: A White Paper. Congress on
Professional Education: Issues in Library and Information Studies Education. American
Library Association, http://www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html |
