September 28, 2005
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science has been awarded two federal grants totaling more than $1 million from the national Institute of Museum and Library Services.The institute awarded more than $21 million in grants to 37 universities, libraries and other organizations nationwide to support education and research aimed at recruiting new librarians and helping to offset a national shortage of professionals in the field.

Those in short supply are school library media specialists, library school faculty and librarians working in underserved communities, as well as successors for library directors and other senior librarians who are expected to retire in the next 20 years.

The first UNC grant, of $804,344, will fund the study “Workforce Issues in Library and Information Science,” a three-year project by the school and the UNC Institute on Aging. Researchers will study the career patterns of library and information science graduates, investigating the educational, career, workplace and retention issues they face.

The second grant, for $392,295, will fund “Recruiting Medical Students into Health Sciences Librarianship,” a study by the school in partnership with the Duke University Medical Center Library. The project will focus on recruiting medical students into a new master’s in information or library science program while they obtain medical degrees. Researchers will test the feasibility of such an approach.

“These projects are important research efforts for the school and to those like us who are recruiting and training new librarians and information specialists,” said Dr. Josi-Marie Griffiths, school dean. “We are grateful to IMLS for these research awards and to its foresight in recognizing the significance of recruiting talented professionals for the future.”

The first study will begin the initial stage of the research in North Carolina, where a full range of information and library science programs exist.

Minority career and retention issues will be a specific focus. This phase of the research will contribute to statewide workforce planning for libraries and other information-intensive organizations.

“One of the goals of the project is to understand what has happened to graduates of our programs over the past 40 years,” said principal investigator Dr. Joanne Gard Marshall, Alumni distinguished professor in the school and a senior research scientist for the institute.

“This is important, because our graduates now have many different career options in the knowledge-based economy,” she said. “Librarians as a professional group are also older on average than other professional groups, so there is reason to be concerned about the shortage being created through retirements.”

The study’s second phase will use methods developed in the first to generate a transferable model for career tracking of information and library science graduates nationally.

“We welcome this partnership with the School of Information and Library Science,” said Dr. Victor Marshall, Institute on Aging director and study co-principal investigator. “The institute has a strong interest in issues of an aging workforce, older workers and the changing retirement transition. This project enables us to broaden our scope greatly, while directly serving the people of North Carolina.”

Victor Marshall also is a UNC sociology professor and an adjunct professor of health behavior and health education in the UNC School of Public Health.

Other researchers involved will be School of Information and Library Science faculty members Dr. Deborah Barreau, assistant professor; Dr. Barbara Moran, professor; and Dr. Paul Solomon, associate dean; and Dr. Thomas R. Konrad, a senior research scientist at the institute and a senior fellow at the UNC Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. Dr. Jennifer Craft Morgan, an institute research scientist, will coordinate the project.

The second study will fund two medical students in completing master’s degrees in information or library science in each of the two academic years beginning in 2006 and 2007 (a total of four students). Researchers will track a perspective on the program and careers in medical information over the two years.

“Today’s medical information environment is increasingly complex, resulting in a critical need for ‘medical informationists’ – individuals who have both biomedical content expertise and an understanding of information and library science,” said Dr. Barbara Wildemuth, Francis Carroll McColl term professor in the school and principal investigator of the project.

Dr. Claudia Gollop, associate dean in the UNC school, also will participate in the research, in partnership with Patricia Thibodeau, associate dean, and Robert James, associate director, of Duke University Medical Center Library.

 

This release was researched and written by Wanda Monroe of the UNC School of Information and Library Science.

Contact: Wanda Monroe, (919) 843-8337, wmonroe@email.unc.edu

For more information, visit these Web sites: Institute of Museum and Library Services: http://www.imls.gov/ UNC School of Information and Library Science: http://sils.unc.edu/ UNC Institute on Aging: http://www.aging.unc.edu/ Duke Medical Center Library: http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/.

For further information please contact Ramona DuBose, director of communications for the UNC School of Public Health, by telephone at 919-966-7467 or by e-mail at ramona_dubose@unc.edu.

 

RELATED PAGES
CONTACT INFORMATION
Gillings Admissions: 233 Rosenau Hall, (919) 445-1170
Student Affairs: 263 Rosenau Hall, (919) 966-2499
Dean's Office: 170 Rosenau Hall, (919) 966-3215
Business and Administration: 170 Rosenau Hall, (919) 966-3215
Academic Affairs: 307 Rosenau Hall, (919) 843-8044
Inclusive Excellence: 207B Rosenau Hall, (919) 966-7430
Room Reservations
Facilities


135 Dauer Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7400