Systems librarians, for instance, have become a critical part of the process, says Tom Abbott, dean of libraries and instructional support at the University of Maine at Augusta. These are librarians who know how to interface with campus computing and information technology departments. "If you don’t have one, the technology, as well as the human side of librarianship, and the academic side, all can be lost," he says. "And they [systems librarians] are not easy to find. My personal opinion is that the best ones are librarians who have a technology interest and have either taught themselves or gone to school to learn about information technology."

In 1996, Abbott was instrumental in starting the first Associate of Science in Library and Information Technology in the country to be provided via asynchronous distance education. Offered by the University of Maine at Augusta, the program has since grown to include a distance education bachelor of science degree program that went live in 1999, and a certificate program. There has been a steady increase in enrollments every year, says Abbott, with the AS and BS programs combined garnering more than 400 enrollments for Spring 2003. Thus far, 77 students have earned an associate’s degree, and 15 have earned their bachelor’s. All three distance education programs have thus far seen more than 700 students take courses.

By special exception, all students in these programs, regardless of where they live, pay Maine in-state tuition.

According to the Library and Information Technology Web site, the programs "are designed to provide students with the skills needed to support the functions of an information-intensive library. Trained library personnel must respond to the rapid national surge in information technology. . . "

"We have some interesting technology courses," says Abbott, adding that a new distance library services course will be offered in Fall 2003.

"What we found as we began talking to people [when the program first started] was there were all kinds of people working in libraries who did not have a degree and had perhaps started college five or ten years ago and, for all kinds of reasons, had never finished. They came to us and asked if we could help, and we said ‘absolutely.’ We have a lot of people who come in and take the certificate or just take courses to upgrade their skills."

Indeed, the importance of upgrading skills in a changing electronic-oriented library services environment cannot be understated. That’s one of the reasons why the University of North Texas recently added a Distributed Learning Librarianship program of study to its School of Library and Information Sciences (SLIS) master’s degree curriculum.

Philip Turner, UNT’s dean of SLIS, explains that the distributed learning librarianship program of study is aimed at helping to fulfill a need consistently being advertised by big academic libraries that are seeking employees with knowledge of the "licensing side and the technology side of librarianship in order to help them deal with a growing online population they are trying to serve."

SLIS offers nine master’s degree programs of study that students can take in one of three ways: via the Web through a cohort-based SLIS Web Institute, which includes face-to-face elements; on-campus in Denton, TX, where UNT is located; or on-site on weekends in Houston or Dallas. The SLIS Web Institute has also entered into partnerships with the University of Houston, the University of Minnesota and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Students are admitted as cohorts in the Web Institute and, at the start of their course work, are required to attend a nine-day or two four-day face-to-face sessions where introductory class work is combined with social events to start the process of building a learning community. The remaining course of study is completed online. Turner says students in the Institute typically come in "stiffly" but soon develop relationships at the social events and ultimately develop stronger bonds as they continue their studies online. To help maintain student relationships, the UNT program has a virtual student union with an online "coffee house" and a virtual career center that hosts online colloquiums on topics such as resume building.

"Of course there isn’t a part of the profession that hasn’t been impacted by the digital revolution," says Turner. "But our purpose has not changed. We stand between the human being and knowledge."

Another innovative librarianship program that has been placing an increasingly stronger emphasis on technology skills is a distance education Master of Library Science (MLS) Program offered by Syracuse University’s (SU) School of Information Studies. The School also offers a Master of Science in Information Management and a Master of Science in Telecommunications and Network Management in a distance education format.

"Students in all three programs can take courses across the curriculums," says Interim Program Director of the MLS Program Abby Goodrum, who happens to have earned her Ph.D. from UNT. "If a student wants to take telecommunications, they can; if an information management student wants to take cataloging, they can. A lot of library science students take an advanced database course; almost all of them take an information architecture course; quite a few take knowledge management.

"Students in library schools need to be trained in information architecture and usability testing," Goodrum continues. "There is a lot of relationship between cataloging and information architecture, because both are concerned with how you organize information so it can be easily found by a user who has an information need."

The MLS program incorporates a great deal of innovative studies in cutting-edge technology into its curriculum, including training in how to provide electronic reference services. MLS students volunteer to take part in the Virtual Reference Desk (VRD) project, a U.S. Department of Education-sponsored project, supported by SU, that is "dedicated to the advancement of digital reference and the successful creation and operation of human-mediated, Internet-based information services."

Goodrum adds that the MLS Program also "plugs into the Center for Natural Language Processing (CNLP), a cutting-edge research center within SU’s School of Information Studies. "CNLP uses natural language and data mining techniques to be able to automatically answer questions, without having to provide 24 x 7 staffing," she says. "It is teaching our students how to create something for the future."

Another course within the MLS program focuses on teaching students how to teach library patrons information literacy skills. "We teach students how to find things online for patrons but also how to teach their patrons how to find things online," says Goodrum. "So it is not just giving people fish; it’s also teaching them how to fish. And we don’t just do that by showing them how to use structured databases; we also teach them how to use the Web environment, including teaching patrons how to exploit the hidden Web."

Overall, SU’s MLS program is preparing librarians in the 21st Century, which is the promotional theme of the program. As noted on the MLS Web site, librarians today "must be able to understand and interpret an increasingly complex information environment; they must be able to collaborate effectively with other information professionals; they must be able to articulate the value of the knowledge and skills of librarianship in a rapidly changing information environment; and they must be competent managers, capable of innovation, efficiency and leadership as they meet the demands of their clientele."

Another innovative curriculum that is preparing librarians in the 21st Century is a master of science degree program offered by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Provided in a distance education format via the School’s Library Education Experimental Project (LEEP) option, students in this program, according to its Web site, "begin with a 10-day on-campus summer stay, during which they complete the half-unit required course "LIS 390: Libraries, Information, and Society" and a number of non-credit technology workshops. Thereafter, each course includes one brief on-campus session (grouped together - students travel to campus only once each semester), which provides opportunities to use materials otherwise unavailable, to give presentations, and to continue to build community among students and faculty. Live sessions with the dean are scheduled once each semester to discuss student experiences."

Professor and Dean of the program, Linda Smith, says that one of the relatively recent changes in the curriculum is the addition of a course on interface design titled "Interfaces to Information Systems." As listed on the course syllabus, this course considers "how people use information systems such as online public access catalogues, CD-Roms, bibliographic databases, digital libraries, World Wide Web pages, Web search engines, etc. . . We will use the techniques from Human Computer Interaction research to identify the problems that people have with poorly designed interfaces, and indeed any interface to a complex information system. . ."

Smith adds that another relatively new area deals with librarians providing and managing virtual reference services. "Increasingly we are having to look at how to function at a virtual reference desk, whether we are answering questions by e-mail or answering questions using live chat, which is an increasing service. Reference librarians need to have a great facility for using and evaluating electronic resources. If you are going to be providing virtual reference services, how do you determine what is accurate information? We are trying to equip our students to do that."

Smith teaches a course titled "Reference and Information Services." One of the assignments in this class requires students to volunteer with the Internet Public Library Ask A Question Service. The Internet Public Library is a public service organization and a learning/teaching environment at the University of Michigan School of Information. Students go to the IPL site and select questions that are submitted by e-mail from Internet patrons from all over the world. "They answer these questions using sources that are freely available on the Internet," says Smith. "So they are gaining experience using technology to access information and using directories. This is an example of close integration of technology with what we would normally think of as traditional library services."

As noted throughout this article and other articles in this issue of Educational Pathways, traditional face-to-face library services are not nearly as prevalent as they were during the relatively recent past. "One of our biggest challenges," notes SU’s Goodrum, "is that the population coming on campuses today grew up with computers and instant messaging, doing everything from their room with a computer. They are not as likely to make their way physically to the campus library. They expect everything to be available at their fingertips and easy to search. If it is not, there is plenty of competition out there" (see article on page 6 about commercial vendors).

Center for Natural Language Processing

Internet Public Library

Syracuse University School of Information Studies

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate School of Library and Information Science

University of Maine Library and Information Technology Programs

University of North Texas School of Library and Information Sciences