Rutgers SCILS: What's in a name?
Former colleague Trevor Dawes has written a thorough piece about a name change proposed by the faculty of Rutgers' School of Communication, Information and Library Studies (SCILS). They have voted on and approved a new name, School of Communication and Information, and it is now awaiting approval from the Board of Governors.
Trevor received e-mail from a current SCILS faculty member after getting involved in a discussion of the name change on a listserv. I find part of that e-mail[1], specifically the rationale for the name change, absolutely puzzling:
We just have so many programs now — we can't possibly cover all of them in our school's name. School of Communication and Information is something of a compromise name, but it does encompass all our departments and programs in the school.
So in order to cover more programs, the name of the school ought to communicate less? Does dropping "Library Studies" somehow represent Journalism, Media Studies, and Informatics students more?
I fail to see how removing "Library Studies" makes the name of the school more meaningful. Why not follow this rationale to its logical conclusion, then, and shorten the name to School of Information? Or iSchool? Or how about "School?" Yes, that's it, "School!" Then all the departments and programs are equally well-represented. Huzzah, faculty!
I should be clear about my objection. I don't mind SCILS becoming an iSchool. In fact, I think my education there could have benefited from a more iSchoolish curriculum. But any problems with the school then were not related to the name, and I doubt they are now. What I object to is the oddball rationale for the name change, and the notion that in order to affect change and improve the school, well, clearly a change in name will do the trick! It's putting the cart before the horse, especially when the MLIS program lacks a core curriculum[2]. This is change in name only and that is perhaps a missed opportunity.
Notes
- Taken out of context, true. [↩]
- An opportunity for real change, though I will admit that there are good arguments against having one. [↩]
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Your puzzlement is feigned, you know that they're just following in the footsteps of many schools who are quite intentionally taking 'library' out of their names. Because they think it makes them look backward instead of forward looking, turns off non-library-focused students, and research money.
I think the curriculums of many of these 'information schools' are just about right, actually. And I think it's a shame that their not proud to be associated with libraries.
And it's a shame that the library sector is not associated with sophisticated innovation in information organization and retrieval, along with public service, and stewardship of recorded knowledge–and an even bigger shame that the more negative perception of the library sector is not entirely undeserved.
I wish 'our' academy was helping us rather than abandoning us though.
Mike –
I'm not sure why I didn't think of that name. I think SCHOOL (and it should probably be all caps) would be the best name. May I forward your suggestion to the dean?
@Jonathan You are right, sir; Rutgers has been following its peers and its superiors along the name change path for some time now. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But it also doesn't mean we ought not to call the faculty out on their questionable reasoning.
I support the iSchool initiative. Period. Library folks would do well to learn more about information science and incorporate it into their trade. SCILS has just handled the transition in what seems to be a very clumsy way given the reaction.
@Trevor But of course. ;)
@Jonathan Continuing to agree with you on the cross-pollination btwn infosci and library studies:
It is also not clear to me what a master's degree in library studies would resemble without an information science component. Reference desk pointers? Cataloging rules? Collection development practices? Forgive me for going there, but I'm thinking if that's what library studies sans infosci resembles, perhaps it ought to be a one-semester workshop rather than a bona fide graduate program?
this whole debacle annoys me for two reasons:
1) isn't this whole name change thing taking up time and money (meetings, new letterhead, signage, etc) that could be better spent on just improving the school in general, including the library curriculum? i mean, really, all this effort just to remove the word "library" from your name? …and
2) how did they think that going to all that trouble to remove library from the name was not going to insult all of us libeerians? it's like they're distancing themselves from one of their largest constituencies (largest if you're talking about the grad school.) no matter what their reasoning is, that's going to be hurtful, and going to alienate us.
what i really wish is that instead of trying to distance ourselves from the word "librarian", we would redefine it as the tech-savvy, tech-centered, information-aggregating career it should and could be. we don't need to turn ourselves into "information professionals", we need to bring the field of librarianship into the future (and the now…) i know that's a bit off-topic, but i feel like we don't need to scrap the title, it's not completely a lost cause, we can still redeem ourselves! (maybe all we need is a good PR campaign?)