F O R A C A R E E R I N I N F O R M A T I O N O R G A N I Z A T I O N

EDUCATION

Daniel N. Joudrey, Ph.D.Ryan McGinnis, Graduate Student

Simmons College, Graduate School of Library & Information Science

Boston, Massachusetts

ALISE/ALCTS Biennial Educators Meeting

A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

• A time of changes

• Less money + fewer staff members = More responsibilities

• New activities

• New formats and new modes of access

• New models

• Entities and relationships are now the focus (E-R models)

• Functional Requirement for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) is the underlying structure for bibliographic description

• New standards

• RDA: Resource Description & Access

• Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME)

• New skills are needed!

IS LIS EDUCATION CHANGING?

• Are we preparing students for careers in information organization?

• Questions: • What courses are being offered?• What’s actually being taught?• How have things changed in the last 7-8 years?

• To find out, we conducted a literature review and studied the Information Organization courses at 58 graduate Library and Information Science (LIS) schools.

WHAT LIS SCHOLARS ARE SAYING

•Theory vs. practice

•Catalogers are still needed

•Curricular innovations are needed

•Bloated information organization courses

COMPARISON OF SIX STUDIES

  Joudrey&

McGinnis2012 

Joudrey2005

Joudrey2000

Spillane 1998

Vellucci 1997

CCQ 1987

# of schools

58 56 55 56 52 55

# of courses offered

298 267 245 221 156 209

Average # of courses offered

5.1 4.8 4.5 3.9 3 3.8

# of courses taught

238 225 ≈196 - 206† Unk. Unk. Unk.

Average # of courses taught per school

4.1 4 

≈3.6 – 3.7† Unk. Unk. Unk.

† These numbers are estimates because data on courses actually taught were not collected in the earliest studies.

14 TYPES OF IO COURSES

• Cataloging

• Advanced Cataloging

• Descriptive Cataloging

• Non-book Cataloging

• Subject Cataloging

• School Libraries Cataloging

• Classification

• Information Organization

• Metadata

• Indexing & Abstracting

• Thesaurus Construction

• Technical Services

• Special Topics

• Other

KEY FINDINGS

• The total number of IO courses has increased since 2005

• 5.1 courses offered/school

• 4.1 courses taught/school

• 80% of courses offered were taught in 2013

• Required vs. Electives courses

• Courses offered: 20% were required 80% were elective

• Courses taught: 25% were required 75% were elective

KEY FINDINGS (II)

• 60% of schools offer 3-4 IO courses

• 88% of schools require one course• 7% have NO requirement • 5% have 2 requirements

• Requirements• 67% Organization of Information• 17% Cataloging• 7% None• 6% Choice of courses (Cat/Org/Tech Svcs/combination)• 3% Org and Cat

KEY FINDINGS (III)Course Type Joudrey &

McGinnis2012

Joudrey2005

Change

Cat 50 44 +6Org 45 41 +4Index 42 47 -5Subject 16 16 0Tech Svcs 15 18 -3Desc 10 11 -1Class 10 10 0Techno Cat 0 1 -1Adv Cat/Special 40 41 -1

Adv Cat 25 28 -3 Special Topics 15 13 +2

Other Formats  53 28 +25 Metadata 42 22 +20

Non-book 11 6 +5Miscellaneous 17 10 +7

Thesaurus Const. 10 8 +2School Libraries 3 2 +1

Other 4 0 +4TOTALS 298 267 +31# of schools 58 56 +2Average # of IO courses offered

5.1 4.8 +0.3

THE RISE OF THE METADATA COURSE

  Joudrey & McGinnis 2012(n=58) 

Joudrey 2005(n=56)

Joudrey 2000(n=55)

Spillane(n=56)

Vellucci(n=52)

Schools offering a Metadata course

36 (62%) 21 (38%) 6 (11%) 7 (13%) 5 (10%)

  Joudrey & McGinnis 2012(n=298) 

Joudrey 2005 (n=267) 

Joudrey 2000(n=237)

Spillane(n=221)

Vellucci(n=156)

# and % of all IO courses offered

42 (14%) 22 (8%) 7 (3%) 7 (3%) 5 (3%)

And, this is a good thing!