LIS 391D.4, Disciplinary and Professional Development of
Library and Information Science.
The past and present of, and possible futures for, library and information science,
including archives and records management and information-resources management.
Includes such subjects as: the history of, and education for, library and information
science; international and comparative aspects; the roles of professional organizations;
ethical and legal standards in practice; research in library and information
science; and trends in library and information science.
The course will include lectures by the instructor, but the primary emphasis will be discussions and reports from students and guests. You are expected to work, in small-group teams and individually, on topics of interest to the class, and to present interim and final oral and/or written reports. In particular, you are to complete a potentially publishable paper on an aspect of education for the library- and information-science profession in the first decade of the Third Millenium.
Your reports are to be provided both in hard-copy form and in the form of a single Portable Document Format (.pdf) file suitable for being posted on the World-Wide Web. The Portable Document Format file must contain all the material that you feel is appropriate for its final report. This file must be edited and formatted so as to present an attractive, professional appearance and so as to present all materials, including spreadsheets, in portrait (not landscape) layout. The title-page of the report must include identification of the report as being a product of course LIS 391D.4, in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, of The University of Texas at Austin. The preparation of this report in Portable Document Format form requires the use of Adobe Acrobat, copies of which are available for student use in the GSLIS Information Technology Laboratory. Please see "Style Notes for Writing a Report for LIS 391D.4" for further instructions on preparing your team's final report.
You are expected to serve as the leader of one or more discussions on topics to be assigned. The function of a seminar-topic discussion leader is partly to introduce and summarize a topic, but mainly to elicit critical discussion about the orientation, perspectives, problems, and issues raised by the topic and to suggest potentially useful sources of further information on the topic..
Note: In order to facilitate communication among the students and between the students and the instructor, you must have an email account.
Your grade will be based 10% on your participation in the classroom discussions, 25% on your service as a discussion leader, 25% on your paper, and 40% on your grade on the final examination. The final examination will be a sample of the kinds of questions that may be expected on the Comprehensive Doctoral Examination. It will be a closed-book, two-hour written examination in which you will be expected to demonstrate critical thinking about various perspectives, issues, and problems arising from the topic of this seminar: Disciplinary and Professional Development of Library and Information Science.
All written and oral presentations will be graded not only on content but also on style. With respect to oral presentations, by style I mean the quality of your delivery, the quality of your organization of the material, and the appropriate use of handouts and visual aids. With respect to written work, by style I mean general appearance, spelling, sentence construction, and the quality of the organization of your material. Specifically, the grade for presentations will be derived from two component letter grades: one grade on the basis of the content, and a second grade on the basis of style. The overall grade for each presentation will be an adjusted average of these two component grades.
Go to Guide to Course Materials for LIS
391D.4
Go to Wyllys Course
Epitomes Webpage
Go to Wyllys Webpage.
Go to Wyllys Faculty
Page.
Go to GSLIS Webpage.
Last revised 1999 August 26