The last decade has seen decline in the fortunes of the Library and Information Science (LIS) sector in the United Kingdom (UK), both in professional practice and in higher education. This paper sets out to assess the health and wellbeing of LIS teaching and research and to identify key strategies for its future survival. Over the past decade many schools of LIS have ceased to exist, among them for example, in the University of Central England, Brighton University and Loughborough. Many have become subdivisions of other schools, as in Northumbria University, Strathclyde and the Robert Gordon University, spread indiscriminately around a variety of disciplines like business management, computing and communications. There are three autonomous departments/schools of LIS in the UK, in Sheffield University, City University and UCL, a very significant decline from what would have been 15 in the 1980s (Elkin & Wilson, 1997). In 2018-19, the authors undertook a series of interviews with colleagues in information and library science education across the UK, both current academics with responsibility for the subject and retired former heads of school, department or subject. The aim of the interviews was to gather the views of these experienced and knowledgeable individuals about how the discipline has fared in the last 30 years, its current status and where it might go in the future. What emerged from these interviews was a sense of isolation, threat and uncertainty amongst participants about their future and that of the discipline. The authors were of the view that the UK is currently at something of a crossroads for the subject as taught in universities and that a study such as the present one would help to focus minds on the areas where most impact might be made in creating a legacy for the subject into the future.