The UNC Board of Governors is the policy-making body. It elects the president (currently
Molly Broad), who administers the university System. Each of the 16
constituent institutions
is headed by a chancellor chosen by the Board of Governors. Each
institution has a board
of trustees in part appointed by the governor and in part elected by the
Board of
Governors.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was originally conceived
to provide educated
leadership for the state and it continues to hold service to the state as
an important part
of its mission. From its classical core, the university added natural
science in 1815 and
conducted the nation's first geological survey in the 1820s. An astronomical observatory
was built in 1831. By 1860 only Yale had more students. Graduate study began in 1876 and
the first university summer school for teachers opened in 1877. Medical
and
pharmaceutical courses were established in 1879. In the latter part of
the 19th century a teacher
training program and a law school were incorporated. In 1897, the first
woman student was
admitted. Rapid growth occurred in the early 20th century. The schools of business,
social work, library science, and public health were all established by 1936. A journalism
school came later. In addition, an Institute for Research in Social Science was organized
in 1924, the Institute of Government in 1931, an art museum in 1958. The Division of
Health Affairs was formally organized in 1949 with schools in the five health professions:
medicine, pharmacy, public health, dentistry, and nursing.
The university's 14 colleges and schools provide instruction in more
than 100
fields, offering 95 baccalaureate, 175 master's, and 109 doctoral programs, as well as
professional programs in dentistry, medicine, pharmacy, law, and library science. Through
its programs the university remains faithful to its founding charge to
"promote all useful
learning for the betterment of humanity."
The university operates in both a central and a federated fashion. From
the federated perspective, each academic unit enjoys substantial autonomy
and is able to operate even when unanticipated changes in leadership at
the top occur. Centrally, however, the university has benefited
from a series of strong chancellors who have provided strong leadership on
campus
and who have represented the University well to the State and the
outside
world. We were saddened to lose our most recent chancellor, Michael
Hooker, who died in June from a very rapid form of cancer. We are
fortunate in that the Interim Chancellor William McCoy is extremely
familiar with the University; he was chair of the Board of Trustees for
many years and a long time supporter of the University. He has a fine
management background as former CEO for Bell South, and as a native North
Carolinian, he knows the leadership in the State and can interact
persuasively with them on behalf of the University.
The School of Information and Library Science (SILS) has enjoyed a good
relationship with former chancellors. Dean Joanne Marshall has met with
Interim Chancellor McCoy who assures her that the School
continues to occupy a central position in the university's future
planning.
The School of Library Science (as it was then named) opened at Chapel Hill in the fall of
1931 with 29 students and five faculty members, although library education
began at UNC-CH in 1904 when Louis Round Wilson began
offering summer school classes. A Carnegie grant of $100,000 gave the school a strong
start and enabled it to receive accreditation from the American Library Association in
1932. It has been continuously
accredited by that body since. In 1987, the faculty voted to include
information science in
its offerings and to change the name of the school to the School of Information and Library
Science to reflect its broader scope.
Approximately 250 graduate students are enrolled in the School's two
master's programs:
Master of Science in Library Science (first offered in 1951) and
Master of
Science in Information Science
(initiated in 1992), a Ph.D.
program (initiated in 1977), and a Certificate of Advanced
Studies
degree
program (initiated in 1988). (See Chapter 7:
Students for comparative
numbers of students by degree program over the past several years) In
1998 the school began offering an undergraduate minor in Information
Systems and currently
has 65 students enrolled in that program.
Since 1985, the school has worked to integrate information technology into
all facets of its curriculum, research and administrative activities. In
1992, SILS established the first departmental "Gopher" at UNC-CH and
the first alumni listserv. In 1990, the school was the first to
implement Windows and later the first to implement Windows 95. The
school was selected by Microsoft in 1996 as one of 20 "early adopters"
of Office 97. In October 1995, a new Information and
Technology Resource Center (ITRC) in what was formerly the Information and
Library Science Library was established. The old library reading room was
renovated to create a new reading room and a new student computer lab and
computer classroom. In the center of the room, a
shared help desk is available with library circulation and reference
activities on the side facing the reading room and a computer and lab help
desk facing the computer lab. The new facility doubled the size of one prior computer
classroom from 14 to 28 seats and increased available workstations from 31
to 50. In the Fall of 1996, Manning Hall was completely re-wired with
category 5 twisted pair to the desktop, a fiber riser and a new Ethernet
switch. As part of this
major renovation, all classrooms were
provided with video beam projectors and state-of-the-art instructor
workstations.
In 1997, additional infrastructure improvement including replacing
and upgrading the school's four servers, adding a 100 MB full duplex FDDI
connection to the campus network, upgrading faculty machines to Pentium
II/266 with Windows NT and postscript laser printers. Lab machines were
also upgraded. A new director of instructional technology position was
created to provide computer support to the faculty and students. In
January 1999, Room 303, which has been a university-scheduled classroom,
will become part of the school's inventory. Plans to make the most
effective use of it to alleviate some of the problems of insufficient
space are being developed.
Dr. Lester Asheim, former dean of the Graduate Library School at the
University of Chicago, joined the SILS faculty in 1975 as the first
William
Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor of Library Science. In 1989, Dr. Edward G.
Holley, SILS dean from 1972-1985, was named the second Kenan professor of
library and information science. In 1995,
the school received funds to establish an Excellence in Teaching Award
with Stephanie Haas as the first recipient. In 1996, a $250,000
endowment from
Hugh
McColl of Nation's Bank of America, established the Frances Carol McColl
Term
Professorship. The award of a salary supplement provides additional
research and travel support for two years to a faculty member to recognize his/her research, teaching and
service contributions. William Shaw was the first recipient; Robert
Losee is the current holder of the award. In 1998, Dr.
Gary Marchionini joined the faculty as the School's new Boshamer Professor
of Information and Library Science.
SILS hired its first director of development in 1992 and its first
director of communications in 1985.
In 1996, the school invited SunSite (now named MetaLab) to move into
Manning Hall. SunSite was established as one of the first electronic
depositories on the Internet with a mission to incorporate
networked
information into retrieval tools. MetaLab operates as an electronic
library, publishing
house, distribution center, and technology showcase.
Today it is accessed over three million
times per week and accounts for the highest amount of traffic of any site
in the Southeast. Metalab's Director, Paul Jones, attends SILS faculty
meetings and teaches one course a year for SILS.
In 1999, the school celebrated the 25th anniversary of a long term
contract with the
Environmental Protection Agency to provide
library and information services in Research Triangle Park. This contract
has provided financial support and hands-on learning opportunities for
over 250 students since its establishment by then-Dean Ed Holley. Formal
paid internships have been created with
Glaxo-Wellcome and Duke University. SILS students also work part time
in many campus units and are well regarded on campus. SILS maintains a
"jobs-l" listserv which is heavily used by the library and information
community.
The school has formal links with Charles University in
Prague, Sheffield University in England, and the Royal School of Library and Information
Science in Copenhagen. A joint summer program with the Bodleian
Library at Oxford University was instituted in 1992. In March 1999, the
School of
Information and Library Science was ranked number
one (tied with the University of Illinois's School of Library and Information
Science) of
all library/information science schools in the country by U.S. News and World
Report. The rankings were based on the quality of faculty and
graduate students, curriculum and
faculty research. Five of the School's specializations were ranked in the
top ten: health
librarianship; information systems; school library media; archives and
preservation; and
services for children and youth.
The school is located in historic Manning Hall
(see Appendix B for map
showing location of Manning relative to other central campus
buildings).
The building houses the school's classrooms, offices, computing
laboratories and library. The library is a central place for students to
meet and work. The students have a lounge on the second floor of the
building. A public seating area has been created in the front foyer. Ph.D.
student offices are located on the sixth level of the library; additional
space is being sought for them. The school's library is a branch of the
university library system.
The library has a spacious reading room with an extensive reference
collection, public access terminals and seating for 40 people. It is
staffed by a full-time librarian, an assistant and 13 student workers, and
is open approximately 82 hours per work. The collection contains close to
90,000 volumes and 3,600 journal titles on all aspects of information and
library science.
The school employs a full time director of information technology and
services dedicated to supporting the computer and networking
infrastructure in the school and a full-time director of instructional
technology. These full time directors supervise two part-time student lab
managers and five other students who work part time in the main lab. The
lab is open approximately 82 hours per week. The main 54-seat computer lab
for students is divided into two adjacent areas -- a computer classroom
and an open use area. The computer equipment is state of the art with
scanners, multimedia monitors, video conferencing cameras, laser printers,
digital cameras, camcorders and the like. In addition to the desktop PCs
and NT-based file servers in the school, several UNIX machines are
available. A large selection of software is available on all PCs in the
lab and in faculty offices. The school's policy is to remain current with
the latest releases.
In addition to the school's public labs, SILS also houses MetaLab
(described in the previous section, "Brief History of SILS"). Another
research facility, the
Interactive Design Laboratory located in the Library on level 4, was
opened in 1998 to facilitate research and development in
electronic
information environments, such as digital libraries, electronic publications, distributed
courses, and shared work spaces.
Revised 9/22/99The Institutional Setting
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) is one of sixteen
constituent
institutions of the University of North Carolina (UNC) system, chartered
by the General Assembly
in 1879. The university was the first public university in the United
States to open its
doors. The first class was admitted in Chapel Hill in 1795. In 1931,
additional
state-supported institutions were included in the redefined University of North Carolina.
In addition to the now retitled University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an
agricultural and technical college (now North Carolina State University at Raleigh) and a
women's college (now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro and co-educational)
were added to the UNC system.
Other campuses became a part of UNC in 1969 and again in 1971 creating the current
16-campus University.
"The mission of the University is to serve all the people of the state,
and indeed the
nation, a center for scholarship and creative endeavor. The University exists to teach
students at all levels in an environment of research, free inquiry, and personal
responsiblity; to expand the body of knowledge; to improve the condition of human life
through service and publication; and to enrich our culture." (Adopted
by the Board of
Trustees, April 25, 1986)
Brief History of the School of
Information and Library Science
The School of Information and Library Science is part of UNC-CH, which is located in
the Research Triangle, so called because of the
large number of companies with major research facilities located in a specially set aside
tract of land equidistant from three major research universities: Duke University, North
Carolina State University, and UNC-CH. SILS takes its character from its
parent university and its unique location. The school
draws on the near-by corporations and government agencies as resources for guest lecturers,
field trips, internships and collaborative research partnerships.
Current
Status
Nineteen full-time faculty and a varying number of part-time and adjunct faculty offer
instruction and advisement. Research funding for the School exceeds
$800,000 per year.
Faculty research is varied and includes such topics as information retrieval, filtering,
use of metadata, the role of information in people's lives, information policy, digital
libraries and virtual communities, networking, evaluation of libraries and information
systems, children and technology, collaboration, human-computer interaction, search
engines, information systems as learning devices, international librarianship, children and
school librarianship, health information needs and uses, cultural institutions and public
libraries.