PROGRAM PRESENTATION

Chapter 10: FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR SILS


Overview

SILS is in the fortunate position of building on a firm foundation in education, research and service that was laid in the past by faculty, staff and students. We have also enjoyed strong support from the UNC-CH senior administration. Our number one ranking in the March 1999 U.S. News & World Report testifies to the perceived strength of the school; however these are challenging times for all LIS programs and we do not intend to rest on our laurels.

We need to continue to advocate strongly with the existing senior administration of the university for increased support for SILS, including improved faculty and staff salaries. Improved salaries, as well as enhanced teaching and research facilities, will help us to recruit and retain the best faculty, staff and students. Particular attention needs to be paid by the dean to building strong relationships with the new senior administration when the new chancellor and provost are appointed. We need to continue to seek diversity among our faculty, staff and students and to reflect the changing ethnic mix in the state of North Carolina. We need to reach out to serve the people of the state and maintain the reputation of UNC-CH as "the people's university".

In the short term, our major need is for more space in Manning Hall, which we currently share with the Institute for Research in Social Sciences (IRSS). We need space for research projects, a networking lab, faculty offices, Ph.D. students, informal meeting areas, visiting scholars and an additional electronic classroom. We need to enhance our development and grant activity to provide infrastructure funds that will help to build our areas of research and teaching excellence. In the longer term, we will need a major renovation or additional wing for Manning Hall to accommodate our space needs.

We need to be active in developing partnerships both on and off campus. These partnerships will help us to optimize our resources and provide educational and research opportunities in leading edge library and information science environments. We need to be creative in seeking new methods of teaching and learning and to be leaders in the application of new technologies. We need to strengthen the link between research and practice as the profession moves into the millennium.

General Challenges

Like all LIS schools, SILS must seek ways to thrive in a rapidly changing environment. Both the nature of libraries and the work of librarians are being revolutionized by new information technologies. We must constantly look for ways to enhance education and research that will help the profession to meet the challenges of the information age. We are committed to maintaining a strong LS curriculum while taking advantages of new opportunities in IS. There are particular opportunities at UNC-CH at the moment to develop an undergraduate major that will complement our current undergraduate minor. With the support of former Chancellor Michael Hooker, SILS has made a request to the UNC General Administration to plan and undergraduate major in Information Science. SILS is committed to a model of introducing new programs that will not compromise the quality of existing programs, Instead, we will ensure that the additional resources associated with new programs will benefit SILS as a whole.

At Carolina there is a particular obligation to build and maintain the strong relationship that exists between UNC-CH and the citizens of the state of North Carolina. Over the years, the state has provided strong support for its universities. As the flag ship campus, Chapel Hill has a special responsibility in this regard. In the past, we have reached out to the community through our student fieldwork experiences, internship opportunities and community-based research projects. We must continue to be alert for opportunities for outreach and service to the state. We must also strive to reflect the ethnic diversity of the state in our recruitment of faculty, staff and students.

SILS has been guided by the principle of steady and strong evolution rather than revolution in its development and this approach has served the school well, particularly in the UNC-CH environment. Our goal is to continue to strive to continue to be the best, but to evolve in a way that values and optimizes the contribution of all members of the SILS community. We will continue to seek opportunities for building and strengthening collegiality and mutual support.

Off-Campus Challenges for SILS

Given the proximity of SILS to the Research Triangle Park (RTP), there are great opportunities for partnerships with various organizations in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. These partnerships in research or education will be of mutual benefit to SILS and the partner organizations.

SILS has had a contract for the past 25 years with the Environmental Protection Agency in RTP, providing library services through funded internship positions for over 250 SILS students over the years. Other library partnerships to provide student work experience are in place with UNC Libraries, Glaxo Wellcome, and the Duke Law Library. Since January 1999, we have been exploring additional relationships with CISCO Systems, Cabletron, Red Hat, and Extensibility, an XML development company. One of the major challenges for the future is to continue to build these partnerships.

As remote learning technologies develop, there are increasing opportunities to provide students in both our degree and continuing education programs with off-site learning opportunities. At the present time, SILS faculty members are actively making use of web-based technologies and email to enhance learning options for students in their on-site courses. Although the school does not currently have a plan to develop a degree program for distance education students, we are committed to using new learning technologies and continuing to explore the use of remote learning tools both off and on campus.

These are challenging times generally for LIS schools as we strive to educate librarians for a changing future as well as meet market demands for new kinds of information professionals. At SILS we believe that a team of information professionals that includes librarians, archivists, records managers and information systems professionals is needed to address society's knowledge management challenges. We are striving to create a school where students from these information professions can work and learn together in an integrated fashion. We are committed to maintaining a dialogue locally, nationally and internationally with professional organizations in the field such as ALA, ASIS, ACM, SAA, SLA, MLA, and IFLA as our curriculum and future plans evolve.

Under the leadership of our former deans, SILS has developed a considerable international presence through IFLA and through international partnerships with Oxford University, Charles University in Prague and the Royal School of Library and Information Science in Copenhagen. SILS has also been a partner in a federal grant with the UNC-CH Slavic Studies department that allows us to host a visiting researcher each year. Former dean Barbara Moran has accepted a position as Coordinator of International Programs for SILS to further develop this international presence.

SILS has been fortunate to have a strong and supportive alumni association and Board of Visitors. The Board members meet annually to provide advice on the future directions of the school as well as fund-raising. The challenge for the future will be to continue to strengthen relationships with existing alumni and to continue to build the Board of Visitors. We must also prepare our current students for their future role in supporting the school. These activities will be a focus for our development efforts in the university's upcoming fund-raising campaign as will the cultivation of additional relationships with corporations, foundations and other funding bodies. It is increasingly evident that support for SILS in the future must come from private donations as well as from state funds.

On Campus Challenges for SILS

Partnerships are another key challenge for SILS at the campus level. SILS enjoys a strong reputation on campus, enhanced by its high ranking as a professional school. This creates opportunities for partnerships with other campus units. Many SILS faculty members have been involved in collaborative research grants in the past few years and SILS students are highly sought after as graduate and research assistants across campus. A major challenge is to meet the demand for both SILS faculty and student time across campus. Currently the demand exceeds the supply and this will likely continue to be an issue in the future. This situation can be used as an argument for increasing resources to the school to expand facilities and enrollment.

Another type of partnership that will be explored in the future is joint masters's degrees. There is currently a joint program established with the Department of Public History at North Carolina State University for students interested in the archives area. Another on campus specialization is in medical informatics has been developed in collaboration with the School of Medicine and the Health Sciences Library. There are additional opportunities for developing joint Master's degrees with UNC-CH schools such as business, journalism, public health, social work and the Institute of Government. Continuing to explore and build mutually beneficial partnerships will be one of SILS' major challenges for the future.

On campus, SILS has developed a reputation as a leader in the application of new information technology through its research and teaching. Our integration of the SILS Library and Computer Lab into the Information Technology and Resources Center has been a model for other LIS schools. SILS has been the beta test site for new applications, such as wireless networking, and we aim to continue to be a campus leader in this area. With the great potential of the field of LIS as a magnet for fund-raising and other forms of development, SILS has the opportunity to become a development leader on campus as well. Communications will be a key element of a success of our research, education and development in the future. We have a new Director of Communications who is leading this effort.

Reaffirming Our Direction

With the expanding opportunities available to SILS, it is important to periodically reaffirm the basic values and themes that provide the foundation for our current and future planning. At the Faculty Planning Day on September 10, 1999 the faculty members reviewed the results of the Delphi study conducted by Professor Evelyn Daniel in preparation for the COA and UNC-CH Graduate School reviews. We reaffirmed the three themes from the Delphi study and the methods that were being used by SILS to reinforce them: Efforts are currently underway to address all of the goals established in the Delphi study. These include: continuing to review and revise the master's curriculum; revising the Ph.D. program; strengthening our activities in information technology support, development and communications; exploring the development on an undergraduate curriculum; examining possibilities for joint programs or partnerships; improving faculty communication and collegiality; and continuing to revise the mission and identify statement for the school.

In addition to the Delphi study, the fundraising priorities developed by SILS in January 1999 were discussed at the planning day. Our goal was to build consensus and to ensure that the priorities were inclusive of faculty member interests. Direct links with the Delphi study findings were found in two priorities: to enrich and expand existing graduate programs and to explore a new undergraduate program in information science. Four areas of excellence in teaching and research had also been identified in the Fundraising Priorities for future development: digital libraries and data management; health information; children and information technology; and cultural heritage information. Global connections with the addition of collaboration was another area of interest. Lifelong learning through distance education received less immediate support during the Faculty Planning Day discussions, but we agreed that remote learning methods were important to integrate into the current curriculum. As in the Delphi study, there was support for the use of distance education in our continuing education efforts.

In summing up the day, Professor Gary Marchionini reminded us of the importance of research and we agreed on the need to strengthen our research and publication. We also discussed the need to focus on a limited number of areas of excellence rather than trying to cover all aspects of library and information science with a limited number of faculty. The dean suggested that linking research to practice, or promoting evidence-based practice for library and information professionals, would provide a link between SILS traditional strength in professional education and the increasing need to focus on research.

In order to reach these goals in the future, the dean made a commitment at Faculty Planning Day to work with the members of the SILS community to:


Revised 10/25/99.