Informed leadership, informed excellence

Founded in 1931 as the first Library School in North Carolina, the School of Information and Library Science has led the state and the nation in educating exceptional librarians and shaping the way knowledge has been preserved and shared for almost 90 years.

Building upon decades of excellence in library education, SILS has expanded its scope and stepped up to the challenges of preparing experts who can manage the increasing volumes and varieties of digital assets. Today, in addition to librarians and archivists, SILS educates information architects, user experience designers and business analysts who can work across the technical, managerial and client-service realms. Our graduates are data scientists, database administrators and security specialists in financial services and IT companies in North Carolina and across the world. They are health informatics professionals for hospitals, research enterprises and insurance companies, and entrepreneurs inventing new information services for personal and business use.

SILS now offers a bachelor’s degree in information science, master’s degrees in information science, library science, biomedical health informatics and digital curation and management, and Ph.D.s in information science and health informatics. We have developed curricula that engage students in problem-based learning, leveraging advanced technology and large-scale databases. We have cultivated experiential learning opportunities, such as courses that visit companies in the Research Triangle and Silicon Valley, research assistantships with libraries and archives at UNC-Chapel Hill and other universities and field experiences that introduce students to North Carolina’s diverse business enterprises. Students acquire technical skills while grappling with the issues and impacts information and digital technologies bring to contemporary work and life. Our educational excellence has been consistently recognized through top national and international rankings, most notably from U.S. News & World Report and the QS World University Rankings.

SILS takes great pride in our reputation as a school that prepares students not just to succeed, but to lead in whatever roles they choose. Our graduates become directors of national institutes and archives, presidents of professional organizations, executives at top technology companies, advocates who develop life-changing literacy and community outreach programs and researchers who increase our understanding of the creation, flow and use information. Even those who never assume high profile positions are often lauded for making innovations and improvements within their organizations. SILS alumni are thought leaders and change makers.

In many cases, this desire to make an impact can be traced back to the influence and encouragement of our outstanding faculty members. SILS faculty are devoted teachers and mentors who bring a wide range of experiences to the classroom.  They are internationally recognized scholars who lead research projects with funding by the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and private foundations including Andrew W. Mellon, United Health and the Omidyar Network. Our faculty organizes research conferences in information retrieval, digital libraries, health informatics, digital curation, and information services for underserved populations. They operate large-scale digital libraries such as ibiblio and WiderNet, and create open source software such as iRods and BitCurator, which are used by corporations and libraries around the world. They edit major academic journals and engage the public through discussions and essays that address issues of the day. And they lead professional societies ranging from the Young Adult Library Services Association to the Society of American Archivists to the global information school (iSchool) Consortium.

SILS’ mission is to educate exceptional information professionals, create strategies and tools to steward data and public knowledge and promote information access and use to improve the public good. Our strategic vision anticipates continued growth in information and biomedical technologies that will affect every aspect of the human existence. Our mission resonates with the Blueprint for Next’s focus on advancing the public good and making innovation fundamental, and we believe that equitable access to information is essential to human progress and prosperity.

We are engaged in creating new curricula in data science that have strong ethical components, promoting global information literacy and access, and developing new organizational tools and strategies for managing information overload. We are working to understand how digital information streams and computational agents affect our bodies, minds and social infrastructure, and collaborating with colleagues across the disciplines to develop responsible information policies and trusted repositories. We will continue to strive for informed leadership and excellence in making data, information and knowledge more accessible and useful to the world.