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Our Mission and Objectives

 

Visionpage top

The School envisions a society in which library and information professionals design and manage systems and services that benefit individuals, groups, communities, and organizations. Access to and the use of knowledge and information provided by these systems and services empower individuals in all their diversity and throughout their lives. The progressive and innovative faculty, through their teaching, scholarship and publication, leadership, and service, are fully committed to the provision of an educational environment which prepares individuals to become leaders in this endeavor.

Mission Statementpage top

The mission of the School, derived from the College's expectation of excellence in undergraduate and graduate programs, is to impart a rich body of knowledge, principles, and practices that will enable information professionals to cope with the ever-changing challenges of today and tomorrow that are cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and international in nature. The School is committed to excellence in instruction and a leadership role within the local, regional, national, and international community of library and information science, and allied disciplines.

Program Goalspage top

The goal of the master's program in library and information science is to provide students with the foundation for developing careers as information professionals. Graduates will possess a broad understanding of library and information science in a rapidly changing society, while beginning to develop some specialization related to management; information and knowledge organization; information production, distribution, dissemination, retrieval, and use; information systems, services, and ethics; networks; and publishing. Within the context of the Program Goals, the School educates students for careers in:

  • Libraries and information centers in academic, public, school media, and corporate/special settings;
  • Archives management in academic, public, corporate, and independent historical society settings;
  • The information services industries (which include bibliographic utilities, companies providing fee based access to information sources, firms offering contracted research or technical assistance to individual or information centers, and companies involved in the design, development, and marketing of tools for information handling);
  • Information systems support (for the student with pre-existing computing experience or academic preparation, this includes working with software/hardware applications such as basic network operations, providing technical support and training, Web management, developing documentation or training tools, and programming); and
  • Knowledge and information resources management (which includes identifying, organizing, and managing the internal and external sources necessary to help an institution or organization conduct its business).

Objectivespage top

The major objectives of the Master of Science program are to help students meet their long-range needs as maturing professionals as well as their immediate needs upon entering the profession. The specific objectives of the program are that graduates will be able to:

  • Engage in critical thinking and problem solving;
  • Understand the information profession, both historical and present day, with respect to professional, social, and ethical issues; professional values; information policies and resources; and potential challenges for the future;
  • Understand the interrelationships between information and knowledge;
  • Analyze the characteristics and information needs of user communities and individual users;
  • Locate, retrieve, evaluate, and disseminate information - in all formats - from the full range of sources;
  • Gather, organize, manage, and preserve knowledge and information resources;
  • Understand, analyze, and apply the principles of management in information-related organizations, and;
  • Recognize the value of and be able to practice effective communication and interpersonal skills.

Student Learning Outcomespage top

The curriculum is shaped in part by the Student Learning Outcomes developed by the GSLIS faculty, and we judge our success in fostering learning by assessing whether all students who graduate with a master's degree granted by GSLIS are able to:

  1. Demonstrate the ability to apply standards relevant to specific information service activities.
  2. Demonstrate knowledge of print and electronic information retrieval procedures.
  3. Develop user-centered strategies for solving reference service problems, while demonstrating a command of current issues and trends.
  4. Analyze, synthesize, and communicate information and knowledge in a variety of formats.
  5. Recognize existing and potential problems in a workplace and devise strategies to resolve them.
  6. Assess, create, and evaluate systems for managing content.
  7. Apply relevant research studies to tasks requiring problem solving and critical thinking.
  8. Demonstrate leadership abilities.
  9. Respond to diversity among individuals and communities through policies, collections, and services.
  10. Analyze information problems and develop solutions drawing from a wide range of information technology tools and practices.

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