Education for information science in the United States

Abstract

Information science as it is understood in Europe tends to be a further extension of an area widely known as documentation. In the United States documentation forms part of special librarianship while information science is understood as computer-assisted Information processing, and as a series of problems, theoretical and practical, connected with the information flow, systems analysis, etc. Information science is an emerging “new” discipline in the process of formation, thus neither its definition nor its content, nor even its educational implications are clearly and unambiguously defined in the United States.

At the higher educational level, three major lines of education for information science may be observed. The first is in fact a traditional library education which tends to adapt itself to modern trends only inasmuch as it changes the titles of certain courses or adopts new terminology.

The second line or conception of information science education tends to combine the best and most useful elements of traditional library science with certain elements of information science. As a result, specialists graduating from such universities represent a certain "mutation", being information scientists within a librarianship.

The third main line – as represented by the Georgia Institute of Technology, Ohio State University and Lehigh University – tends to break with traditional programs in librarianship fully to concentrate on what is called information science. Their curricula place special emphasis on such courses as computer technology, systems design, mathematics, cybernetics, communication, linguistics and behavioral science. Education for information science is generally going on at the master or doctoral level and candidates for these degrees are bound to conduct research work. This is particularly important because information science is still in the process of formation and the final formulation of the concept, content or definition of the subject field may be attained by the help of researches in the subject field.

The development of information science programs are considerably supported by the National Science Foundation and the American Society for Information Science (formerly: American Documentation Institute). These two organizations have given substantial support, among others, for the elaboration of a model-curriculum for information science (1969). Despite many efforts at unification, both the conception and education for information science still show a variegated picture, a fact indicating that this discipline is at the initial stage of its development.