The April faculty meeting was both productive and informative. After the initial
business, the various departments gave their updates. From the Information
Science and Telecommunications Department, Dr. Weiss announced that Dr. Metzler
will be teaching a Digital Library and Information Management course that will,
of course, be open to all interested LIS students. Dean Larsen reported that he
is working on a newsletter for SIS. This newsletter will contain School and
faculty news, as well as notes on faculty developments.
From the admissions and review committees it was learned that registrations are
going strong and many new students will be arriving for both the Summer and Fall
terms. Current students are encouraged to make sure to look out for the "newbies"
and make them feel welcome, and of course help them out if they need it!
The most exciting news was from the Curriculum Committee. Massive changes are
being made for the Fall term concerning the LIS 2000 (Understanding Information)
and LIS 2770 (Library Management) courses. For LIS 2000, the course will be run
in only one section, and it is strongly urged that new students take this. The
course will be held in Langley Hall, and will be taught by Dr. Detlefsen, Dr.
Carbo, and Dr. Kimmel. For the first half of the three hours, the class will be
taught by those esteemed faculty members; after the halfway point, there will be
break-out discussion sessions administered by an experienced PhD student. Should
be interesting!
For LIS 2770, it was proposed that this course be the ONLY course required for
the management component of the MLIS degree (with the exception being School
Library Media Center Management and an archives/preservation management course).
This course will split the term into three units. The first eight weeks of the
course will be general management lessons; the next five weeks will be comprised
of break-out sessions that concentrate on management in specific types of
libraries; weeks 14 and 15 will be a reconvening of the entire group, and
consist of reflections on the corporate culture of libraries. This management
course will be THE management course for incoming LIS students, and, of course,
LIS students who have not already completed the management requirement. The
course will be taught by the adjunct faculty members who generally teach each
separate management course, and seems very interesting.
As you can see, many changes are being made in the LIS department. I hope that
this report has been informative. If you have any questions, comments, or
concerns, please contact me (cbm5@pitt.edu) and I will try to find out the
answer!