INTRODUCTION


2004 ALISE Statistical Report and Database

Evelyn H. Daniel and Jerry D. Saye

This volume is the twenty-fifth annual statistical report on library and information (LIS) education published by the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). Its purpose is to compile, analyze, interpret, and report statistical (and other descriptive) information about library/information science programs offered by schools that are members of ALISE offering the ALA-accredited master’s degree. The Statistical Report is published by ALISE as a service to the Association membership. A Statistical Database is produced as a means of collecting the data systematically and making it available to researchers and administrators in an easily manipulated format. Together, the Report and Database support the mission and goals of ALISE by providing empirical data on the state of LIS education in member schools and by documenting trends in faculty staffing, student populations, curriculum change, funding, continuing education, and other aspects of LIS education.

ALISE owns the database and archives older editions; these are available in electronic form. Earlier editions of the Statistical Report are published on the Web at http://ils.unc.edu/ALISE/ ALISE promotes the use and awareness of the Report and Database. The intended audience includes LIS administrators, researchers, faculty members, current and prospective graduate students, and journalists. The general public may find it valuable as well.

The Report and Database is published in two formats – a printed version for ease of use in studying and comparing data from various schools and a Web version for wider access and quick referral to particular tables. The Web version includes some additional tables and material. The Web version is the more accurate and up to date of the two versions, because after the initial publication, corrected data sent to the editors by schools is inserted in the Web version with a flag and a footnote reporting the original (erroneous) data.


About This Report. The present edition numbers ___ pages and reports information about 55 of the 56 member schools offering degree programs in library and information science that have been accredited by the Committee on Accreditation (COA) of the American Library Association (ALA); Rhode Island did not report this year although the school did send data on income and expenditures. An agreement with COA for collaborative data collection reduces the reporting burden on the schools and improves the response rate. We wish to acknowledge the assistance and support of Karen O’Brien, Program Officer for the Office of Accreditation. Ann O’Neill, Accreditation Officer, has been unfailingly helpful and supportive of our work.


Database Development. Student data are now available in Access database format for the past eight years (1996-1997 to 2003-2004). Non-confidential faculty data reported in Part II of the Faculty chapter are available for the same period. Much of the information in the Curriculum chapter is non-quantitative in nature and some of it changes little from year to year. It is only periodically published in full in the printed document. This year marks a full publication. In preceding and subsequent years the information appears in tabular form only in the Web version (Tables III-1 through III-29) with a brief summary appearing in the printed version. Comparative quantitative data in Curriculum and in Continuing Education are incorporated into the database.

Any researcher or administrator wishing a copy of the data now available in database format may request it directly from the editors (daniel@ils.unc.edu or saye@ils.unc.edu ). These data can be made available on disk in compressed format for cost. A database service is also available whereby key variables can be selected and specialized tables created. For example comparative data for a selected set of peer schools can be produced. To discuss data needs, contact one of the editors.


Authors of the Report. ALISE has been fortunate in the authors of the Report. Members of the Association owe a great debt to these individuals who, as a service to the profession, compile the raw data as it is received from member schools, analyze it, and produce the tables and commentary for each chapter. Dan Barron, from the University of South Carolina, is the principal author of the Curriculum chapter. This year marks his 19th and final year of service. We wish to here acknowledge his leadership in helping to make the statistical service a reality. As in many other ALISE ventures, Dan has articulated a vision and then demonstrated his commitment by follow-through action. Lokman Meho from Indiana University will step in as the new author of the Curriculum chapter beginning with the 2005 Report.

One other author has provided long term service to the ALISE Report. We are fortunate that he continues to do so. Tim Sineath, University of Kentucky, has produced the Faculty chapter for 18 years and also served for many years as editor of the Report. Jerry D. Saye from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in addition to being one of the editors, has been the principal author of the Students chapter for eight years coinciding with the number of years we have been editing the report. He will relinquish this duty in the coming year to ____________. Jana Varlejs of Rutgers University has been the author of the Continuing Professional Education chapter for the past seven years and has earned a reputation as the most prompt of all our authors. We can expect her chapter by or before the deadline every year. John and Jane Olsgaard from the University of South Carolina have served as co-authors of the income and expenditures chapter for the past four years.

Chapter authors serve without pay. Their resource needs are contributed by their home schools. Their satisfaction lies in the knowledge that their work contributes to important knowledge about the state of library and information science education. The Association benefits from their gift.


Support for the Database and Statistical Report. For three years, up until two years ago, the ALISE Board has provided partial support of $12,000 per year for the Database and Report service. For the past two years due to financial difficulties of ALISE this project has received no support from the Association. The School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has generously provided support in the form of a graduate assistant to aid in the compilation of data in the Students chapter and to assist in handling the work flow. This support, too, has been the victim of budget exigencies and the number of hours of assistant time has been drastically curtailed. The reduction in support has slowed the conversion program substantially and has contributed to the late arrival of this edition and the delayed introduction of electronic data submission. We are hopeful that the dip in support is temporary and that we can return to more timely publication and development of the database.


Progress on the Database and Data Collection via the Internet. A database written in Access with an ASP interface for data collection from the schools via the Internet was completed last year. Throughout the eight year period that Jerry Saye and Evelyn Daniel have edited the Statistical Report, SILS has hosted the project on its web server. A school policy change resulted in the need to transfer the database to a MySQL server. This meant the interface as well had to be rewritten in PHP. The database is large and has many peculiarities due to the history of its division into five subject areas and data compilation and analysis by a series of different authors for each section. At this writing, the conversion project is nearly completed. Testing for the collection project and data input for the past several years are still necessary. Resources are scarce, however, and the date of implementation seems to move further and further into the future.

The 2003 edition was to mark the end of Evelyn Daniel’s editorial contribution. She has extended that term in order to complete the database conversion and had hoped to see the project through to final implementation. However, the lack of funds may mean having to pass on an unfinished project.


Acknowledgements. In addition to the invaluable contribution of the principal authors of the sections, we wish to acknowledge the assistance of Dragomir Dmitrov in the preparation of this year’s Report and Database and the conversion of the text to an html document. Erik Bansleben joined the project in the spring and has taken charge of the redesign and conversion of the database and worked with Sam Kome of the SILS computer support staff on the development of the PHP input pages.

April 11, 2005

Evelyn H. Daniel and Jerry D. Saye
Co-editors