I-Schools Form New iCaucus

Branding effort aimed at students, business leaders, funders

By Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 09/15/2007

A group of 19 information schools in the United States and Canada—including 14 of the 57 programs accredited by the American Library Association (ALA)—have announced their participation in an “awareness” initiative dubbed iCaucus.

The program's intention, said Ronald Larsen, dean of the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, is to put a face on the information field as a “most favored” academic pursuit and to elevate the perception of it as “as a field of study offering huge promise and potential for both students and organizations.”

The branding “certainly has some potential for creating at least the semblance of a rift [between those LIS schools in the group and those that are not],” observed Danny Wallace, a professor at the University of Oklahoma School of Library and Information Studies. “It seems likely that the iCaucus initiative will increase competition among the schools that are part of the initiative. Most LIS schools occupy market niches that are defined primarily by geography and secondarily by opportunities for specialization.”

The iCaucus effort, undertaken in association with branding company MBS Associates, will seek to position the information field as a potentially lucrative and rewarding career choice, aiming outreach efforts at “prospective students, business leaders, employers, funding entities, and other constituencies,” emphasizing solid annual salaries and a 7.5 percent salary increase for 2006. “We have an extraordinarily strong point of departure for this project,” Larsen said. “Information management is key to all disciplines.”

Wallace, until recently a member of ALA's Committee on Accreditation, added that while the initiative might bring some new students into the LIS field, he doesn't think it would draw students from other LIS schools. Also, while iCaucus members “might seek alternative accreditation for other programs, it seems unlikely that a program currently accredited by ALA could readily meet the requirements for accreditation by any other body,” he said.

The ALA-accredited programs in iCaucus are the University of California, Los Angeles, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies; Drexel University, Philadelphia, College of Information Science and Technology; Florida State University, Tallahassee, College of Information; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Graduate School of Library and Information Science; Indiana University, Bloomington, School of Library and Information Science; University of Maryland, College Park, College of Information Studies; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, School of Information; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Information and Library Science; Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies; Syracuse University, NY, School of Information Studies; University of Texas, Austin, School of Information; University of Toronto, Faculty of Information Studies; University of Washington, Seattle, Information School; and the University of Pittsburgh, School of Information Sciences.

The programs in iCaucus that are not accredited by ALA are University of California, Berkeley, School of Information Management and Systems; University of California, Irvine, Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences; Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta; College of Computing, Indiana University, Bloomington, School of Informatics; and Pennsylvania State University, State College, School of Information Sciences and Technology.