School of Library and Information Science

Full List of SLIS Courses of Study

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

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

Table 3: Courses on Information Environments

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
Course numbers updated May 2010 

Full List of SLIS Courses of Study