This prestige study surveyed full-time faculty of American Library Association (ALA)-accredited programs in library and information studies regarding library and information science (LIS) journals. Faculty were asked to rate a list of eighty-nine LIS journals on a scale from 1 to 5 based on each journal's importance to their research and teaching.…

New homegrown groups such as iDiversity call attention to the important and essential role that student-based groups play in promoting cultural competency within their own institutions and the profession at large. The iDiversity story outlines (1) how student engagement can be transformed into leadership and action by diversity focus within the…

Focuses on utilizing organizational theory in understanding the progress of constructing a new departmental identity in a former library and information science school that was merged with an education school. Findings indicate that members of the former library and information science school faced pressure both to become more like education and…

Among the issues discussed are: the need for, and extent of, a central professional core; the need for additional relevant, but nonprofessional, subjects that could be part of a core; the depth of penetration suitable for various aspects of librarianship; the use of laboratory instruction and internships; and the optimum length of study. (30…

When library education was institutionalized at universities, it pursued a social scientific path of disciplinary growth; objectivity and neutrality became ideals of library education. A different conception of social science provides the basis for recent challenges to the library and information science profession's traditional perception of…

This article explores the future trajectory of librarianship and its status as a profession in the context of the contested terrain of the information professions and particularly the development of a differentiated information technology workforce. Andrew Abbott's theory of the system of professions informs the historical comparison and future…

Three authors respond to the findings of a study by Griffiths and King, which was contracted by the Department of Education to identify the professional competencies that should be encompassed by library and information science programs, and the methods by which the competencies' relation to professional performance may be evaluated. (CLB)

Online learners often stay located in, and tied to, their communities, kinship networks, households, and workplaces. Institutions providing online education can thus create ties to communities as students draw their learning into networks in which they are already embedded. Frequent interactions across multiple media that are afforded by…