There´s something about librarianship that´s catching the attention of students locally and around the world like Davena Kisna who came to the U of A´s School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) from Saint Lucia, an island nation in the Caribbean Sea.
"In my country, libraries have not changed since my childhood and are still not high on the agenda. The materials and resources are the same now as when I was little," says Kisna who was intrigued when she found the school´s website during an Internet search.
"I have always been interested in librarianship. What I learn I will take back to my country," she says.
Kisna is one of 54 new graduate students in SLIS´s Masters of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) program who bring with them a variety of disciplinary backgrounds including English, History, Science, Mathematics, Linguistics and Language, Political Science, Music, Intercultural Studies, Communications, Athletic and Massage Therapy, Commerce, Chemical Engineering and more.
In addition, this year´s students have knowledge of 16 different languages: Cantonese, Cree, Danish, English, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and Ukrainian.
Nicole Rice, also one of this year´s new SLIS graduate students, recalls her early childhood memories of visiting the library.
"I was very young in Dawson Creek. My grandmother was a librarian, so I remember going to the library. It seemed so big, and I felt such a great sense of adventure," says Rice.
And adventure is precisely what this year´s group is experiencing along with one of their instructors Brooke Sheldon who says the field of librarianship has come a long way since the door first opened for her, literally, while a student in Cambridge.
"I was working for the Atlantic Monthly but thought I might want to do something more service oriented with my life like social work. Then one day I was on the Simmons campus and I saw a door in the wall that said, " School of Library Science.,.open me." I turned the knob and was swept in. Four days later I was a student. They just took me in and enrolled me," says Sheldon.
Part of the Faculty of Education at the U of A, SLIS offers the only Master of Library and Information Studies program on the Canadian prairies that is accredited by the American Library Association (ALA). SLIS also offers an inter-faculty combined degree program, Master of Library & Information Studies/Master of Arts in Humanities Computing, and is a home department for the Master of Arts in Humanities Computing program.
The School is currently in the process of developing a Ph.D. program. In the meantime, in conjunction with other University of Alberta departments that house PhD programs, SLIS offers opportunities for individual interdisciplinary PhDs.
"It´s an extraordinary time for those seeking a career in librarianship and for those also interested in information studies in the broadest context," says SLIS´s new director Ernie Ingles. "It is a particularly exciting time for students entering professional practice who will engage society at a time when information is the life-blood of a increasingly global knowledge economy."
"Prospects for our students have never been more positive," says Ingles.
SLIS´s vision for teaching, research, and service is grounded in a multi-disciplinary focus on issues of information access and equity.