Mary E. Brown, Ph.D., Professor
Information Science
GUIDEBOOK CONTENTS:
Beginning the Odyssey
OTHER LINKS:
Job Seeking (ALA site)
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Beginning the Odyssey:
You have decided you want a degree in one of the information sciences. Congratulations, you are making a good investment in your future in the expanding information age.
Charting the terrain
Learn as much as you can about the broader information and library field. You may want to begin with a general overview of library and information science Education & Careers (American Library Association).
- Explore the field guides (resources) listed below (including Websites of ALA, ASIS&T, ACM, ALISE).
Field guides to the Information field:
- AAM Home American Association of Museums
- ALA Home American Library Association ("The Voice of American Libraries")
- ASIS&T Home American Society for Information Science & Technology ("The Information Society for the Information Age")
- ACM Home Association for Computing Machinery ("The First Society in Computing")
- ALISE Home Association for Library and Information Science Education ("Promoting excellence in library and information science education")
- AAMC Home Association of Art Museum Curators
- ACM Home Association of Children's Museums
- ALA-APA Home ALA-Allied Professional Association
- ALA Library Interests Round Table (scroll down to Round Tables)
- NPS Home National Parks Service
- SAA Home Society of American Archivists
- Strike up conversations and begin to develop contacts with librarians, web designers and developers, teacher-librarians (school media specialists), CIOs (Chief Information Officers), instructional designers, publishers, corporate trainers, bibliographers, archivists, database designers, information brokers, competitive intelligence specialists, anyone that gathers, organizes, analyzes, synthesizes, stores, or distributes information. Find out more about their jobs. See if you can spend a day "shadowing" various information professionals as they go about their work.
- Set a goal, such as completing a B.S. degree within the next five years, completing a M.L.S. degree or Sixth Year Certificate within the next two years, completing one continuing learning course next semester. Assess your various commitments and responsibilities to determine how to best accommodate them along with academic study. (It is also a good idea to review your time and stress management skills. Our students tend to be balancing many responsibilities at once and this can lead to time conflicts and this can lead to stress.)
- Refer to the University's Website for financial information and estimate how much it will cost to achieve your goal. Evaluate your financial situation and begin exploring financial aid, scholarships, work-study, part time jobs, payment plans.
Learning basic seamanship
Before beginning academic study in ILS double check that you have sufficient technology skills to do well in beginning courses.
All incoming graduate students must have the following computer skills prior to taking any courses in the Department of Information and Library Science: Windows; MS Office including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and basic Access (table creation, queries on a single table); any drawing tool; e-mail; ftp; html and website construction. Some familiarity with personal computer operating systems and interfaces is also assumed. To acquire these skills, students can take courses at a community college, a university, or a computer-training center. These skills may also be self-taught with the help of a textbook or instruction manual.
Undergraduate students should plan to achieve these skills in their freshman year.
Many ILS courses are offered online. Currently WebCT/Vista courseware is used to deliver online courses. Tutorials about WebCT/Vista are available at http://www.southernct.edu/departments/ftrc/vista/tutorial/student_demo.htm
Seaworthiness
Ready to set academic sail? ILS permits non-matriculated students to take up to 9 credits (3 courses) before being admitted to the MLS degree program (ILS 501 Introduction to Information Science and Technology and ILS 503 Foundations of Librarianship and perhaps ILS 504 Reference or ILS 506 Cataloguing). Taking courses prior to applying does not give the applicant an advantage in the application process.
It is, however, strongly recommended that you begin the application process as soon as you enroll in a first course, if not before.
New students and students who are not currently enrolled at SCSU must fill out a Request for Registration form to be able to register online for courses (whether offered on campus or online). After completing the Quick Admit form, students will be notified via email with instructions on how to register for a class. It is very important to give a current and valid email address in order to receive this information. Requests are processed in approximately 2 to 3 business days.
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