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The modern M.L.S. degree

Library schools today are turning out webmasters

By Marissa Melton

Kara Wilhelm spends her days poring over public databases, scanning electronic news services, and conducting online searches for any scrap of "business intelligence" that will give an edge to her employer, an alliance of nonprofit hospitals based in Chicago. How are similar firms holding down costs? How might the Asian financial crisis affect her company's profits? Wilhelm's qualification for the job: a master's degree in library and information science.

Library science is a field transformed by the cyber-revolution. A generation ago, "the librarian had the crepe-soled shoes and the bun and was holding court in a book-lined environment," says Carol Hoffmann, assistant to the director of the University of Pittsburgh's library system. Lately, explosive growth in the volume and import of electronic information has created demand across disciplines for people expert in organizing and retrieving it. "Now, librarians are in hospitals. They're in law firms. They're building Web sites," says Hoffmann. They're freelancing as highly paid researchers, or "information brokers." They're working for software developers, testing programs for user friendliness.

The information technology boom has likewise re-energized university library science departments, many of which suffered during the '80s from budget cuts and a tight job market. The library school at the University of Denver, which was axed entirely in 1985, arose from the ashes a decade later, thanks to the lobbying of local librarians who recognized the need for a new generation of technology-savvy practitioners. This time, in addition to collection management and reference services, Denver's program offers courses on Web content management and competitive intelligence. The University of California–Berkeley, which similarly has shifted away from traditional coursework, went so far as to shut down the library school in 1995 and reopen it the following year as the School of Information Management and Systems.

Some schools have added degrees that combine the old skills with the new. Since 1995, for example, Indiana University–Bloomington has offered both a traditional master's in library science (M.L.S.) and one in information science (M.I.S.). The latter degree, which has led graduates into public relations, policy analysis, and computer systems design, attracts about one third of the library school's entering class. Skills taught include both the classic (information retrieval, archiving documents) and the cutting edge (interface design, online sales and marketing).

Librarian engineers. At Drexel University's College of Information Science and Technology, which also offers M.L.S. and M.I.S. degrees, students have had a third choice since the fall of 1997: an interdisciplinary degree, cosponsored by the math and engineering departments, in software engineering. The curriculum mingles the technical coursework of a computer science program with the training in assisting people that is typical of library programs; graduates who go to work for software companies are thus prepared to elicit and handle feedback from customers. And at the University of Pittsburgh, library students may opt for an M.S. in telecommunications that is jointly run by the school's computer science and engineering departments. The program prepares students for careers in wireless communications services, including sales and customer support.

Interest in the nonlibrary library programs has been growing steadily, and no wonder: Entry-level salaries for tech jobs average as much as $5,000 more than the $30,000 or so traditional library positions offer, according to Library Journal's annual survey, published in October. Many jobs pay much more, notes Blaise Cronin, dean of the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University. Terry Tracy Kemper, a first-year student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, expects to command at least $40,000 at graduation as an "information architect" at a Fortune 500 company–that's the person in charge of controlling the flow of information inside the company. Kara Wilhelm, now three years out of graduate school, earns more than $100,000 collecting business intelligence.

The marketability of the new library science degree has attracted many people pursuing a second career; about 40 percent of graduate students in the field are over 35, compared with 28 percent 15 years ago. Stephen Thompson, 54, entered Indiana University's program in 1997 after losing his position at a software publishing company. "I wanted to have something," he says, "that would mark me as a little different from everyone else who was jumping out of computer systems training backgrounds." Thompson now works as a professor of computer information systems at Ivy Tech State College in Bloomington. Laura Gordon-Murnane, 39, gave up her work on a Ph.D. in history after realizing that she didn't want to compete in a tight job market for professors. She enrolled in the University of Maryland library school and now runs her own information brokering business, gathering industry information for her clients in much the same manner as Wilhelm.

Gordon-Murnane's profession is one that might appeal to the entrepreneurial library graduate. There's no precise data yet, but The Burwell World Directory of Information Brokers lists 708 brokers in the United States (all of whom request to be listed), and Editor Helen Burwell estimates there may be twice that many in the field. Typically, they serve companies that need to know, for example, how a competitor markets a product, but can't justify a permanent research staff. Meanwhile, other companies are scrambling to fill information technology positions. A nationwide survey of 1,400 chief information officers conducted last August by consulting firm RHI showed that 33 percent believed networking design and maintenance–an increasingly popular career choice of library and information science students–to be the fastest-growing information tech job today. Networkers, who devise, install, and manage a company's internal network, are needed by "basically all companies" says RHI spokesperson Reesa McCoy Staten. Computerworld magazine reports network administrators can command salaries of $55,000 to $80,000. Internet development and maintenance (including webmastering, taught at most library schools) was named as the next-most-promising position. Entry-level professionals can make as much as $45,000 developing and maintaining interactive sites on the World Wide Web.

A dearth of qualified professionals in both of these areas is expected to ease somewhat over the next couple of years as more trained workers enter the job market. But the market itself–business, government, transportation, education, health care–is vast and growing.

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