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February 29, 1996

SLIS wants to change name to School of Information Sciences

Faculty and administrators at the School of Library and Information Science have voted to change the school's name to the School of Information Sciences. They say the new name will more accurately reflect the school's current research and curriculum.

For the change to become official, it must be approved by Pitt's senior administration.

The school's dean, Toni Carbo Bearman, said she will submit a written proposal to Provost James Maher this week. In a Feb. 22 interview, Maher said he would reserve judgment until he has read Bearman's proposal, but that he knew of no reason to oppose the change.

Under the proposal, the school's two existing departments (library science and information science) and the telecommunications program would be reconfigured into two units: the Department of Library and Information Science and the Department of Information Science and Telecommunications. Enrollment and numbers of faculty and staff would not be affected.

The proposal to drop "library science" from the school's name does not mean that Pitt is de-emphasizing that discipline, according to Bearman. Rather, the new name would reflect the growing amount of interdisciplinary activity among the school's three main units, she said. "There is much more of a crossover than when I came here as dean [in 1986] — more joint faculty appointments, more interdisciplinary research, and more students taking classes in both departments." The one thing that library science, information science and telecommunications all have in common is that they are information sciences, the dean said.

The name "School of Information Sciences" has recently been adopted by library science/information science schools at the University of Michigan and the University of Tennessee. Before personnel at Pitt's school agreed on that name, they considered several others, including: * The School of Library and Information Science and Telecommunications. "Too long," Bearman noted.

* The School of Information Management and Systems, a name recently adopted by the University of California at Berkeley. "In using the word 'management,' we saw a potential conflict with the Katz Graduate School of Business. And we want to collaborate with them, not create conflicts," Bearman said.

* The School of Informatics. "That's a term that is more common in Europe and might not be widely understood here," Bearman said. "Also, it sounds too computer-oriented." * The School of Information. "Most people felt it was too general a name, or that it sounded like a school of journalism. Also, the word 'information' by itself sort of has CIA connotations," Bearman said. "Actually, I rejected that name at first but then I grew to like it. After all, we have a school of medicine and a school of education, not a school of hospitals or a school of education buildings." The dean said she hopes to get approval for the new name as soon as possible, in order to use it in promotional materials for the fall term.

According to Bearman, the financial costs of the name change would be negligible. "I don't have an estimate, but I think we're talking fairly small dollars here. We would need a new sign for the outside of our building, obviously. We wouldn't have to throw out much of our current letterhead paper. We're running low on it anyway, as we tend to do at this time every year. And much of what we do in terms of publicizing the school and recruiting is done electronically these days. Changing our name on a World Wide Web page would be a one-time thing, and inexpensive." Pitt opened what was then called the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences in September 1962. The word "graduate" later was dropped when the school began offering undergraduate degrees. Pitt's school was the successor to the Carnegie Library School, which was founded in 1901 as a training school for children's librarians.

— Bruce Steele


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