ALA Councilors Disagree Over Updating LIS Rankings

-- Library Journal, 6/1/2005

Janet Webster first noticed that the U.S. News & World Report rankings for LIS education were years out-of-date one year ago. Webster, head librarian at the Hatfield Marine Science Center at Oregon State University, is one of the librarians behind a draft resolution floated recently on the American Library Association (ALA) Council electronic discussion list that would have ALA urge U.S. News & World Report to update its library school rankings, dated 1999. Thus far the resolution has been received coolly—mostly owing to Council members’ dismissal of the rankings in general—but Webster wonders if it is unwise to ignore the rankings and assume librarian-like research abilities among those who are only beginning to consider library school.

“I am disappointed with ALA councilors who do not see any value in promoting library education through mechanisms commonly accepted by other professions,” Webster said. “Yes, [the rankings] are flawed, but they do have a popular and very public presence.” Given the pace of change in information science, that public presence, circa 1998, may be a misleading one. “Distance education is an obvious change in delivery and is an element that probably is not well addressed in the methodology used,” Webster noted. In addition, the advances of digital collections, virtual reference, and the changes in user behavior (Google, anyone?) all influence course materials and approaches to LIS curricula. The 1999 rankings were based on questionnaires that asked LIS educators to rate the “academic quality” of programs at each institution and generated a 60 percent response rate. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill tied for the top spot.