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Full List of SLIS Courses of Study
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Course of Study
User Services
User Services is a course of study that prepares students to develop, provide, deliver, and evaluate information services designed to meet the information needs of individuals, communities, and the global society. The course also prepares students to educate users on research process and information access tools (such as search engines, databases, and online catalogs), and help them develop information literacy. By completing this course of study graduates will be able to function effectively as reference librarians, electronic resources librarians, instruction librarians, Web services librarians, information brokers, vendor representatives, consultants or managers of public services in various type of information environments.
Competencies
This course of study prepares students to
• Create, identify, retrieve, evaluate and synthesize information for users
• identify, plan, provide, and evaluate library and information services
• Provide users with appropriate consultation and guidance or instruction in the use of information resources
• Anticipate current and future user needs
• Apply technology strategically to improve services and enhance access to information resources on a global scale
Courses: Required & Highly Recommended
Because SLIS offers more than 40 courses related to the area of user services, this course of study identifies four required courses (551-557) and eight highly recommended courses that will help students develop the competencies stated above. These 12 courses are sorted by competency areas in Table 1 to help students and advisors determine if this course of study meets students' interests and needs. Advisors and students should feel free to use this course of study as the basis to develop a customized plan of study if necessary.
Table 1. Required & Highly Recommended Courses by Competency Area
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Information Organization |
Services & Resources |
Technology |
Professional Identity & Management |
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551 Organization of Information 606 Cataloging & Classification |
553 Information Sources & Services 727 On-Line Information Retrieval 730 Use and Users of Libraries and Information 820 Information Literacy and Instruction Design A higher-level reference course in a subject area (see electives in Table 2) An information environment course (see electives in Table 3) |
555 Information Systems in Libraries and Information Centers 742 Library Technologies and Project Management |
557 Libraries and Information in Society 607 Management |
Distribution of the 12 courses by SLIS competency areas: Info. Org.: 17%; Services & Resources: 49%; Technology: 17%; Prof. Id. & Management: 17%
Customization
For customization purposes, students can select other courses from the Services & Resources clusters of courses (Table 2) and courses on specific information environments (Table 3).
Table 2. Competencies: Services & Resources
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5x# |
Mid-level Courses |
Advanced Courses |
Specialized Courses |
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553 |
702 Advanced Information Sources and Services 704 Humanities Information 706 Social Science Information 782 Government Information 708 Science and Technology Information 819 Business Information 608 Collection Development |
772 Media services 728 Adv. online retrieval 809 Adult services 842 Special collections |
841 Rare Books 833 Music librarianship 843 Art & museum librarianship 813 Sch. Lib. Med. Center 871 Health Sci. librarianship 826 Legal lit. 828 Adv. Legal research 831 Music bibliography 883 Religious archives 852 Children's lit. 854 Media for children 855 Media for adolescents 870 Health Sci. lit |
Table 3: Courses on Information Environments
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LSC 801: College and University Library LSC 807: Public Library LSC 818: Special Library/Information Center LSC 882: Institute on Federal Library Resources |
Students without prior user services experience are encouraged to do a practicum (906).
Associations
Professional associations for librarianship are important sources of information about the profession, continuing education opportunities, scholarship support, and networking. Most have student membership rates. For further information visit the Websites of these associations:
American Library Association. http://www.ala.org/
American Society for Information Science and Technology. http://www.asis.org/ SIG USE (Special Interest Group on Information Needs, Seeking and Use) and SIG DL (Special Interest Group on Digital Libraries) are especially relevant.
Association of College & Research Libraries. http:// http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/
Reference and User Services Association. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/index.cfm
Special Libraries Association. http://www.sla.org/
Web Resources and Publications:
Students can use the following resources to keep up with development in the User Services area:
· ACRL (Association of College & Research Libraries) Standards & Guidelines. A valuable site with standards on information literacy, instruction, and other topics. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/standardsguidelines.cfm
· American Libraries
· Information Technology and Libraries
· Journal of Academic Librarianship
· Journal of the American Society of Information Science
· Library Journal
· Reference Librarian
· RUSA (Reference and User Services Association) Guidelines. A rich site with guidelines on reference/information services, user populations, electronic services, genealogy, and other topics. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/resources/guidelines/index.cfm
Adopted February, 2009
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