SLIS looks to past, future during centennial celebration

The school that was born of a mission to educate librarians to work in the state of Wisconsin now boasts about 4,000 living graduates who are employed all over the world in libraries and archives of all sizes.

In these days of digital files and instant information, the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) is always adapting — and it’s been doing so since its founder Lutie Stearns traveled around the state, carrying books in boxes, during the earliest years of Wisconsin’s libraries.

The school celebrates its centennial this year, with a weekend of events planned for Friday and Saturday, Sept. 29 and 30.

Librarian Charles McCarthy, who worked to found the Legislative Reference Bureau, which linked the state and the university, was a strong proponent of the Wisconsin Idea.

Photo: courtesy School of Library and Information Studies

Louise Robbins, director of the school, says that alumni — both recent and not-so-recent — will return to campus for a Friday evening reception and Saturday programs. University archives will conduct oral-history interviews throughout the weekend.

Humble beginnings

Stearns and Frank Hutchins started the school as a summer program in 1895, when it was funded by and considered to be part of the newly created Wisconsin Free Library Commission. Wisconsin Sen. James Stout funded the first two years of the Summer School in Library Economy, which trained the state’s earliest librarians and was run through but not by the university’s summer school. The curriculum included book buying; serials and pamphlets; public documents; shelf listing; reading for the young; and library development and extension.

Enrollment slowly grew, with 384 students educated by the program from 1895-1905, 56 percent of which were from Wisconsin. In a 1904 biennial report to the Legislature, the Wisconsin Free Library Commission called for a permanent library school, according to the soon-to-be-published SLIS book “Tradition and Vision: Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin, A Centennial History.” The Legislature provided $3,500 in annual support, and in 1906 the program moved into the second story of the Madison Free Library on Carroll Street, with Mary Emogene Hazeltine at its helm.

At the time, the country had only six library schools, and formal standards for library education were few. A college degree wasn’t required for admittance. Applicants were required to be at least 18 years old — preferably 20 — and they were asked to participate in “laboratory work,” or what would be considered internships today. Prospective students also needed to know how to type, and they were expected to demonstrate “the library spirit,” which suggested that being “true believers” in what they were doing was vital. Three long courses were the foundation of study: Cataloging, Reference and the Book Course, which included selection, the history of books and printing, and acquisitions. A 36-week program led to a certificate or diploma.

The university began making financial contributions to the school in 1909. Although the school was still administered by the Free Library Commission, it was considered to be a part of the University of Wisconsin. And after years of being located a mile from campus, in 1938 the school moved into new quarters at 811 State St., a former fraternity house. That same year, the university assumed administrative control of the school, with four faculty members and an emphasis on training librarians for work in small public libraries.

Through the years, enrollment has grown and the curriculum has evolved. In 1950, the master’s degree program was established. In the 1960s, specialist and doctoral programs were created, increasing graduates’ job opportunities. About 200 students are in the master’s program, and 11 faculty members are on the school’s staff.

Prospective students now are evaluated mainly on their academic backgrounds, and the program offers both master’s and doctoral degrees, and a post-master’s specialist certificate. Students can specialize in school library media, archives administration, technology or print culture history, as well as academic, public or special libraries user or technical services. New specializations include digital libraries and health informatics.

Graduates of the doctoral program currently teach in about half of the accredited library and information science education programs in the United States and Canada, and a number have served as deans in their programs.

An insider’s view

John Boll joined the school’s faculty in 1956. He witnessed countless changes during his tenure at UW–Madison, which ended with his retirement in 1992. Topics such as storage, bibliographic centers, purchasing, preservation and increasing dependence on the Library of Congress were at the forefront in classrooms around the country.

“To some libraries, intellectual questions — what is our field? — became a fatal problem,” Boll says. “Some began dealing intensively with artificial languages and mathematical formulae at the expense of library studies. Some were closed; others became part of a larger department.

“Fortunately, our school weathered this period of searching, partly because of the central administration’s traditional library support, and partly because of our faculty’s down-to-earth attitude,” he adds. “We discussed the trends, we changed courses and emphases, introduced new courses, but never lost sight of the fact that we are a library school, not a mathematical formulae or electronics or artificial intelligence school.”

From microform collections to digitization, the field has embraced growth in technology. “Once cataloging was standardized in a computer-legible format, all library cataloging was profoundly changed,” says Boll. “Libraries engaged in ‘retrospective conversion’ projects, and our courses had, and did, reflect those changes, too.”

Computers caused obvious changes in library operations and teaching, says Boll. “Originally they were rare, enormously expensive, took up much space and required special housing,” he says. “Their use, and instruction in their use, did not come overnight.”

Boll says that in the 1960s, a colleague of his, James Krikelas, started teaching binary and programming and computer languages. By the 1970s, Boll adds, computer use was taught as an integral part of the curriculum.

Another major change was a shift from a limited, mostly required curriculum to one with many electives, says Boll. “Prior to the 1960s, we knew what students had been taught in the beginning course and could base our advanced courses on that,” he says. “After many electives were added, students could specialize more to meet their anticipated goals and needs, but no longer left with an identical knowledge base.”

The program now takes two years, with new classes starting in the fall only — an effort by faculty to return a “class” feeling to the program, in which students take many of the same required courses together at the same time, says Robbins.

Courses also combine the how-to with the theoretical, to keep up with the constantly evolving field. “Topics are abstract: information-seeking behavior, information policy, digital-rights management,” says Robbins. “We have many historians [on the faculty], and people are also becoming more oriented to technology. We have to address the needs of users, no matter where they are.”

In the field

Amanda Werhane, a 2005 graduate of the school and now the bioengineering librarian and marketing coordinator for the Wendt Library, says that she is amazed by the pace of change in technology and communication. “No sooner have I explored some new tool, [than] I find that students are using something else to keep in touch and find information,” she says.

Werhane pursued the field after several years in nonprofit and public administration, when she realized that her goals and personality suited her for librarianship. Career-changers are common to the school, says Robbins; the average student age is 26 to 34.

The field, she says, “appeals to the teacher who wants to do instruction, but not grade papers; to the person who wants to do academic research, but not on the tenure track. Libraries can provide a career for people who don’t want to be bench scientists. It’s perfect for someone who likes to dabble in a lot of things.”

Vicki Tobias, a 2003 graduate and digital services librarian at the Digital Collections Center, also chose libraries as a career change and specialized in archives administration. “I’m pleasantly surprised by the growing academic track/coursework related to ‘digital libraries’; not just at UW–Madison, but elsewhere in programs around the country,” she says. “New graduates entering the library workforce are educated and experienced in so many important areas previously not offered in library school curriculum.”

With 100 years behind them, administrators in SLIS are looking ahead to the next accreditation process, which comes next year. Robbins says they likely will look to create more interdisciplinary course offerings, so graduates can be prepared for the integration of libraries, archives and museums in a digital environment.

To learn more about the centennial celebration, visit http://www.slis.wisc.edu/.