Advice for students interested in digital information at the Palmer School, by Thomas Krichel

These notes are personal. They are not an official statement of the Palmer School. This is the version of 24 March 2009.

In classical library training, students are exposed to a given set of information resources. They learn what these resources are, and how to use them. They also learn how to help users to find resources, and to teach users to use resources.

In order to broaden job opportunities for our graduates, I have, since 2001, worked on new courses that allow graduates go get involved in producing new information resources on the web. There is a vast amount of information already available on the web. Basically, the web is the library of the future. But current information has to be maintained current, and the old information has to be preserved. This is a field of work for the information professional.

Thus the courses continue the old library ideal of a library providing information freely to its users. It just that in the case of digital information, anybody is invited use it, not just the people who can come to the library.

The courses are not geared towards generic computing technologies, but mainly to those that occur in digital library building and evaluation. Almost all of these activities occur through the web.

There is a particular philosophy that underpins the construction of these courses. While there is no absolute dogma in general, the courses tend to

All courses contain a practical component where students build actual web-based information resources. They train students to do actual digital information work. The hope is that people who can solve digital information problems will have better job prospects than people who just have an idea about whom to ask to solve the problems.

There are four courses. Two of them have current course numbers, the other ones are running as special topics. The two courses that have numbers are LIS650 “Passive Web Site Architecture and Design” and LIS651 “Active Web Site Architecture”. The other two, that don’t have course codes, are called “User Interfaces” and “Collecting Digital Documents”. I will refer to the “User Interfaces” as LIS653 and to “Collecting Digital Documents” as LIS652 but this is just for identification in this document.

Collectively all four courses are known as the digital quartet.

The use of sequential numbers should not be taken to indicate that there is a simple sequential order in those three courses. It is a bit more complicated.

There are two basic courses, LIS650 and LIS652. They are basic in the sense that they can be taken any time. They do not have any prerequisites in terms of our courses in the quartet.

There are two advanced courses, LIS651 and LIS653. They are basic in the sense that they can be taken any time. They do not have any prerequisite in terms of other courses in the quartet.

The courses with the odd numbers, LIS651 and LIS653 should only be taken after LIS650. If you have not taken LIS650 you have to demonstrate adequate competence in the subject matter of LIS650 in order to enter any of these.

It is better to take LIS653 “User interfaces” before taking LIS651 “Active Web Site Architecture”. In fact, I conceived LIS653 “User interfaces” in order to make it easier for students to absorb the material of LIS651.

Here I list the scheduled classes of these courses. It is important to note that if there are not enough takers, the classes may be cancelled.

Courses on metadata, human computer interfaces, on management of electronic records and on digital preservation appear to be useful complements to the digital quartet.

The curriculum committee admitted a topics course on “Building Digital Libraries”. This is still a special topics course. As far as I understand it, it aims to do no actual building of digital libraries. Instead it talks about the issues arising within digital libraries. Since nobody is quite sure what a digital library is, the course material tends to look at repository building. Repository building is covered in detail in LIS652. Thus I really don’t see a reason to take this course to complement the courses here.

There used to be a required course LIS508 “Technology for Information Management”. The course suffered from the absence of an agreed list of topics that should be covered. When it was made a non-complsory course, enrolment to the course decline. It is useful for a person to take that course before LIS650 or LIS652 if they feel that their practical technology skills are weak.

In addition to the digital quartet, students can do an independent study with me to prepare a larger project with me. Usually, I would wait until a student has covered the material in LIS651.

The courses in the quartet require analytical reasoning. Students who are weak at analytical reasoning may find them more challenging than other Palmer School courses. But analytical reason can be trained.

The course material in the digital quartet tends to be cumulative, that is, advanced concepts can not be learned until simple concepts are understood. Each development builds on the previous one. Therefore it is essential to revise and check the material every week. I tend to run quizzes. While students may reasonably assume an A grade for a final web project—provided they have taken accounts of published criteria—an overall A grade as the final grade can only be achieved if the quiz grades are not too low.

Statistics on grade point averages suggest that in other classes an A grade is almost guaranteed. Courses in the digital quartet may well be more difficult to get an A grade in.

Students may quite legitimately ask: is it worth the extra effort?

The Palmer School curriculum committee has refused to create a digital information concentration. Fortunately, I don’t think that students of the digital quartet really need to have a formal recognition. They can prove their talents by maintaining publicly available sites. In any job interview, they will be able to competently talk about the real issues in building and maintaining those sites.

Students who start with LIS650 immediately get access to web space to build sites with. Students who start with LIS652 will be able to manage their own servers. There is no shortage of digital information work. Students are ready for business as independent consultants. Only students who have done LIS651 will be able to build large systems, say with hundreds or thousands of pages. Such systems can be built under supervision in an independent study class. They will powerful convincing tools in any job interview.

The final test comes in the job market. I am convinced that students who do reasonably well in these courses will never be out of a job. They will easily be able to get jobs outside the library sector. And if they choose to work in the library, they will earn more than the average library worker, and be at a lower risk of job loss.