Blatant Berry: Why I-Schools Need Library
An agency mandated to be neutral and objective
John N. Berry III, Editor-at-Large -- Library Journal, 09/15/2007
MBS Associates, “A branding, strategic planning, and marketing firm,” has just been hired by the “iCaucus,” a consortium of 19 “leading” information schools, to launch a “major branding and marketing communications program.” The idea is to “put a face on the information field that will position it as a 'most favored' academic pursuit and elevate its perception as a field of study offering huge promise and potential for both students and organizations that rely heavily upon information and information professionals,” according to Ronald Larsen, dean of the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, who leads the iCaucus and is quoted in the MBS press release.
I'm deeply concerned that the word library is missing from the pitch by MBS and Larsen. I'm concerned not only that library studies don't seem to be a major part of the iCaucus focus but also that there is little or no recognition of how librarians and libraries ensure that there is a neutral, objective, uncorrupted channel and agency engaged in and available to all for the provision of information.
I chatted briefly with MBS president Mal Schwartz, who told me his daughter, Danielle, attended the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, NY, and as a result he became friends with Ray von Dran, a spark plug for the I-School effort who died in July. I often discussed the movement with von Dran and another friend and colleague, Mike Eisenberg, dean when the University of Washington renamed and refocused its Information School. I observed the movement to reposition the old “library schools” with both admiration and anxiety.
Some of the most prestigious schools that offer the American Library Association (ALA)–accredited master's degree in library and information studies are part of the iCaucus. They include the top-rated programs at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (See News, p. 16ff., for the full list.)
I want to make my biases clear: I am a librarian and an editor. I have seen those two occupations described recently as “legacy jobs.” I work on a magazine with library in its title, and I am a member of ALA. I belong to a few other library groups as well. Neither my library school alma mater nor the programs at which I currently teach are members of the iCaucus. Most important, nine out of ten of the students in my recent classes tell me they want to be librarians when they graduate.
So I have questions and concerns when I get a press release from 19 I-Schools and the word library appears in the names of only four of them. What percentage of each school's enrollment consists of students who aspire to be librarians? Should those students look elsewhere for their degrees? Does librarianship get the full attention it deserves at a school engaged in an effort to promote the “information field”?
Finally, I wonder why ALA's Committee on Accreditation should be empowered as the accrediting agency for programs in an “information field” that omits the word library from its lexicon, its publicity, and its list of professional positions.
LIS programs still attract huge enrollment in many schools, including members of the iCaucus. Libraries remain the only agency with a mandate to deliver information to our citizenry, without being required to make a profit in that enterprise. Information, without an agency to deliver it uncorrupted by the powerful motivations of profit and politics, can become promotion and propaganda.
I hope that the iCaucus participants and all the other library programs will apply the same level of enterprise and energy to putting the library and the librarian in that “most favored” position in our society.
