Prior to retiring from full-time librarianship to concentrate on readers' advisory (RA) consulting, teaching, and book and media discussions, Ted Balcom, longtime administrator of the Villa Park Public Library (VPPL), Illinois, repeatedly demonstrated a particularly effective approach to shoring up essential library support. Balcom, 1996 winner of…

To transform humanists with Ph.D.'s into academic librarians is the purpose of an initiative recently launched by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The equivalent of an apprenticeship, the program revolves postdoctoral work in an academic library in lieu of earning a master's degree from a library and information studies…

Addresses information versus library science and examines what the dispute over graduate education means for librarianship. Describes three arguments for maintaining a balance between library science and information science and the land-grant university ethic. A sidebar contains an interview with Ken Haycock focusing on what to expect from the…

Addresses the motivations underlying faculty advocacy of the "information" model for library and information science (LIS) education. Proposes an intensified interest in and support of all aspects of LIS education by the many worlds of LIS practice and suggests that a cultural model of LIS better positions both the "library" and "information"…