Here is the article from today's New York Times.
Library Science Goes High-Tech
By KATE MURPHY
What is the gross national product of Belize? Who
invented
polyester? How smart is the average pig?
Five years ago, the best way to find answers to questions like
these was
to go to a library and ask the librarian for help in finding
the appropriate
books and periodicals. Today, the same information is
available on the
Internet, but finding it may still require the assistance of a
librarian.
As technology has made more
data available than can be
bound in books or cataloged
by the Dewey decimal system,
the field of library science has
changed drastically. While it is
still a discipline dedicated to
finding, filtering, organizing,
evaluating and presenting
information, it now requires a
great deal more technical
expertise with electronic
information and computer
networks. These new
demands, in turn, have
opened a raft of new career
opportunities, attracting considerably more people to the
profession over
the last decade.
In response, many universities have converted their schools of
library
science into schools of information and library science or,
increasingly,
just schools of information.
"Information has always been the focus of library studies, but
recent
technological developments mean that there are now vast stores
of
information beyond what is contained within the walls of
libraries," said C.
Olivia Frost, associate dean of the University of Michigan's
School of
Information in Ann Arbor.
As a result, becoming a degreed librarian these days means
taking
courses like Implementation of Distributed Information
Systems, Web
Site Design and Network Management.
"A third of the titles currently on our list are about the
Internet; that's up
from zero six years ago," said Patricia Glass Schuman,
president of
Neal-Schuman Publishers Inc. in New York, a supplier of
textbooks to
library and information science schools.
With their technological expertise, fewer recent graduates of
library and
information science programs are actually becoming librarians.
Take John
Powell. After graduating from the University of Michigan
School of
Information last year, he became data base manager and
Webmaster for
the State Appellate Defenders Office in Detroit. "The field is
rapidly
expanding to include a wide range of career opportunities," he
said. "It's
not just cataloguing books anymore."
Powell's duties include maintaining
a
World Wide Web site linked to a
data
base of legal research as well as
conducting Internet training
seminars
for defense lawyers throughout the
state.
Although there are no comprehensive
job placement statistics for
graduates
of library and information science
schools, officials at the American
Library Association have noticed a
marked increase in the number of
professionally trained librarians
pursuing nontraditional,
technologically
oriented careers. "More and more,
we're hearing titles like
cybrarian,
information specialist, Webmaster,
knowledge navigator and data base
manager," said Elizabeth Martinez,
the
association's executive director.
Administrators from top library and
information science schools report a similar trend. "A growing
percentage
of our students graduate to work outside traditional library
settings," said
Brooke E. Sheldon, dean of the Graduate School of Library and
Information Science at the University of Texas in Austin.
She estimated that nearly 25 percent of last year's graduating
class went
on to nontraditional library jobs like information brokers and
network
managers, while her counterparts at the University of North
Carolina at
Chapel Hill, the University of Michigan and the University of
Illinois at
Champaign-Urbana gave numbers of 30 percent and 40 percent. In
the
late 1980s, only 2 percent to 9 percent of library science
graduates took
such nontraditional jobs.
"There is high demand today for people who understand how to
find,
organize and distribute knowledge," said Lois Remeikas, who as
director
of knowledge and information management for Booz Allen &
Hamilton, a
consulting firm, has watched her department double in the last
two years.
Companies like Monsanto, Ford Motor, Microsoft, Intel and CNA
Insurance have begun to intensively recruit library and
information science
graduates to fill such positions as scientific searcher,
configuration
manager, records management analyst and graphic multimedia
designer.
In a shift from the past, corporate representatives now show
up regularly
at library and information science schools to attract students
and, in the
case of CNA Insurance, have even set up special internship
programs.
"Industry has come to realize the competitive advantage of
hiring
professionals who not only know how to find strategic
information
quickly, but how to evaluate its validity and present it
coherently," said
Lynn Eastabrook, dean of the University of Illinois School of
Information
and Library Science.
The recent increase in job
opportunities for library and
information science specialists has
inspired more people to enter the
field. The American Library
Association's figures indicate that this
year's total enrollment at schools of
library and information science in the
United States and Canada is up 47
percent from 1986. And membership
in the association itself has swelled to
58,112 in 1996 from 42,361 in 1986
-- an increase of 37 percent.
The trend is even more striking at
some individual institutions. For
example, the University of Texas has
twice as many library and information science students now as
it did in
1990. And applications for admission to the University of
Michigan's
School of Information are up 50 percent for the latest class
over the
previous year's class.
Also, more men are showing interest in what was once
considered a
woman's career. Most library and information science schools
report a 10
percent increase in male students within the last five years.
Powell, at the Appellate Defenders Office in Detroit, said the
field's new
emphasis on information technology, particularly related to
computers,
had changed the image of library science. No longer is it seen
as the
occupation of spectacled spinsters who delight in telling
people to hush.
"Because of the important and crucial role they are able to
play in this
complex information age, there's new zip to the stereotypical
profile of a
librarian," Dean Sheldon at the University of Texas said.
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