List of Courses for a Masters Degree in Library Science
A number of schools offer graduate degrees in library science, either on campus or online. A graduate degree in library science gives students the foundation to pursue a career in the public library sector, academic library sector, research and development, business and database design, and management. Schools offer very similar courses under different titles, but the goal remains the same---to prepare students to effectively work with society's recorded information.
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Foundation Courses
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Graduate programs in library science start with core courses in the subject. These courses offer an introduction to the field, tell its history and outline the future direction of the field. These courses fall under different names that include foundation of information systems or foundations of library and information science, but the underlying lessons remain the same---discovering the concepts, history and issues present in the library science field. Additional core courses include managing information organizations, professional and social aspects of information services, and information sources and services.
Cataloging and Classification
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Cataloging and classification stands as a standard course for all library science graduate students. This course delves into how recordable knowledge gets cataloged, with specific emphasis on library cataloging and classification. The list of topics studied includes the various cataloging systems including the Dewey Decimal System, Anglo-American cataloging rules, Library of Congress classifications and machine readable cataloging formats. This course also provides practice in the actual fundamentals of library cataloging and classification and includes discussions on historical and theoretical issues involved in building a bibliographic database.
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Collection Development
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The collection development course introduces students to the steps of developing a collection of work. It includes community analysis, which criteria to use for selecting the works for a collection, acquiring the selected works and sorting and evaluating the selections. It also explores the issues and impact of collecting through electronic methods.
Academic Libraries
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The graduate student in library science must understand the role of the library in higher education. This course explores the administrative and academic challenges faced by libraries in a higher education setting.
Information Architecture
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This course introduces the various theories, methods and concepts of information architecture. Some schools add additional website design projects to this course and include how to structure information for physical, virtual and hybrid worlds.
Research
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Graduate students in library science programs take courses in research-related areas including competitive intelligence, legal research, data mining, how to conduct qualitative research and writing a research report. Classes in competitive intelligence teach students to uncover hidden information through in-depth research about the internal and external environment of a competing organization. Student are taught to evaluate and use the information gained and the ethics involved in competitive intelligence.
Digital Libraries
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A digital library class introduces the graduate student to the world of research and development in the digital library. Topics in this course typically include foundation and architecture of digital libraries, metadata, standards and intellectual property rights, and electronic publishing.
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References
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