PRESS RELEASE
September 4, 2013
Forty-nine students will begin their MLIS program today in the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) at the University of Alberta without ever setting foot on campus. A few will even wear a UofA hoody to celebrate. For some this is a dream come true. One new student wrote, " I never thought that it would be possible for me to earn an MLIS since I live on a farm, quite some distance from a major urban centre, and have to work to pay for that farm."
The first cohort of the UofA's Online MLIS program will explore community-focused librarianship with an emphasis on Canadian content and context. The program owes much to the leadership and passion of Ernie Ingles, former Director of SLIS. According to Acting Director Anna Altmann, Ernie is "a visionary with a long history of outreach to rural Canadians. The online MLIS is just one in a long line of projects that Ernie has spearheaded to make library resources and services, and now professional librarianship education, available to underserved citizens." Our on-campus program welcomes 46 new students who also began their MLIS program today.
For more information about the program, please see our website at slis.ualberta.ca. Also, please feel free to contact Jennifer Branch-Mueller, Coordinator of the Online MLIS, at jbranch@ualberta.ca.