Did You Know?
SLAIS Faculty have won three UBC Killam Teaching Prizes!
SLAIS: The iSchool at UBC Mission, Goals & Objectives
SLAIS Mission
In support of The University of British Columbia's mission, the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies prepares professionals to exercise leadership in planning, implementing and promoting the preservation, organization and effective use of society's recorded information and ideas.
SLAIS Goals & Objectives
Goal 1: To attract highly qualified and motivated applicants from a wide variety of backgrounds
Goal 2: To educate students in the scholarly and professional dimensions of their field and to produce graduates able to advance professional practice and contribute significantly to the growth of the theoretical and methodological body of knowledge of the professions
Goal 3: To contribute through research and publication to the development of the information field and its disciplines
Goal 4: To foster interdisciplinary links with auxiliary and allied disciplines and fields
Goal 5: To cultivate a relationship of mutual support with the academic and professional community locally, nationally, and internationally
Goal 1: To attract highly qualified and motivated applicants
To achieve this goal the School
- Follow principles of equal opportunity.
- Participate in relevant recruitment, informational activities, and programs in order to communicate effectively with prospective students, including those from outside British Columbia and Canada.
- Make efforts to recruit qualified applicants from under-represented minority groups.
- Work with relevant local and provincial information-based employers to encourage their employees to pursue a SLAIS degree.
Goal 2: To educate students in the scholarly and professional dimensions of their field and to produce graduates able to advance professional practice and contribute significantly to the growth of the theoretical and methodological body of knowledge of their professions.
To achieve this goal in the MLIS program the School will:
- Provide a curriculum of required and elective courses, including practica and independent study, to develop a foundation of knowledge that enables its graduates to:
- be aware of and understand the role of librarianship and other information professions in society, including current trends;
- establish, operate, and manage responsibly an information agency or service;
- understand and apply the principles for identifying, evaluating, selecting, utilizing and maintaining appropriate information resources and systems;
- organize information resources for effective retrieval;
- assess informational, educational, and recreational needs of diverse users and provide information services, resources and systems appropriate to those needs;
- understand and apply research in library and information studies and related fields, and engage in research activities;
- understand the use of electronic technologies in information systems.
- Promote through course work and by example professional attitudes regarding scholarship, professional ethics, intellectual freedom, and access to information in a democratic society,
- Provide students with an intellectual atmosphere which stimulates a positive commitment to library and information studies and to continual professional development,
- Provide continuing education for information professionals and, on a selective basis, for persons outside the information field,
- Maintain regular processes of overall curriculum review and revision,
- Maintain regular processes of course and instructor evaluation.
To achieve this goal in the MAS program the School will:
- Provide a curriculum of required and elective courses, including practica and independent study, to develop a core of knowledge to enable its graduates to:
- be aware of the role of the archival institutions and the archival profession in society, including current trends;
- understand the nature, genesis, organization, maintenance, use, evaluation, and preservation of archival documents (or records), both public and private and in any medium, created by organizations and individuals;
- establish and effectively manage archives and records services;
- understand the principles and methods of the identification, arrangement, description, and indexing of archival materials;
- understand the means of making records and the information they contain accessible and the rules governing rights to consult archives;
- be familiar with the history of the archival discipline and of recordkeeping in societies the world over since ancient times;
- appreciate research in archival science and related fields, and its application to archival work;
- understand the application of electronic technologies both to the creation, maintenance, use, and preservation of records and to the work of archivists.
- Promote through course work and by example professional attitudes and standards of scholarship, professional ethics, access to information and protection of the privacy of the subjects of records,
- Provide students with an intellectual atmosphere which stimulates a positive commitment to the archival profession, to its scholarship, and to continual professional development,
- Provide continuing education for archival professionals and, where archival knowledge is needed, to persons outside the field,
- Maintain regular processes of overall curriculum review and revision,
- Maintain regular processes of course and instructor evaluation.
To achieve this goal faculty members in both programs will:
- Endeavour to be aware of the history of their specialties, their current application in information agencies, and recent trends,
- Maintain high standards of teaching, using information and assistance available in the School, the Faculties of Arts and Graduate Studies, and elsewhere in the University.
Goal 3: To contribute through research and publication to the development of the information field and its disciplines.
To achieve this goal the School will:
- Endeavour to provide support for faculty research.
To achieve this goal faculty members will:
- Pursue external research support,
- Maintain and actively pursue personal research agendas leading to scholarly publication.
Goal 4: To foster interdisciplinary links with auxiliary and allied disciplines and fields
To achieve this goal the
- Establish and maintain links with other UBC departments and units,
- Pursue collaborative links with University and other organizations and individuals in auxiliary and allied disciplines and fields.
Goal 5: To cultivate a relationship of mutual support with the academic and professional community locally, nationally, and internationally
To achieve this goal the School will:
- Solicit counsel from representatives of the student, alumni, and professional communities as relevant on School activities and programs,
- Provide relevant and innovative continuing education and professional development programs for the library, archival, and related information-based communities in British Columbia.
To achieve this goal faculty members will:
- Serve the University, and serve local, and provincial communities,
- Serve the national and international library and archival communities in a leadership role,
- Maintain active membership and participation in relevant professional associations,
- Encourage student participation in relevant professional associations and groups.
A graduate of the School should:
- Be competent in the basic professional skills of identifying, locating, acquiring, describing, organizing, storing, preserving, and providing access to recorded information, regardless of the physical form in which it appears or the technological mechanisms required to accomplish these skills;
- Be capable of determining the needs of present and potential user groups and of developing collections and services to meet those needs;
- Have the ability to plan and administer effective library and archival services, in most cases within the framework of an institution or inter-institutional organization such as a network or consortium, and to be accountable to the institution or organization;
- Possess the skills necessary to evaluate systems and services so that they may be cost-effective and responsive to needs;
- Have sufficient understanding of the principles of electronic technologies to plan, implement, evaluate, and master, and to teach and supervise others to use, current and emerging computer-based information systems;
- Have developed an understanding of the processes of research and scholarship, and be able to assess and apply the findings of research
- Be qualified to engage in research and to communicate research results in scholarly and professional publications, and at meetings of professional and learned societies;
- Value the principles of intellectual freedom and the right of free access to information, while recognizing the rights of privacy of the individual and confidentiality of service;
- Participate in the activities of organizations which endeavour to improve the quality of professional service in libraries, archives, and information work, and to enhance the status of those professions in society.
Because the School is part of a Canadian university, and because the majority of its graduates will work in Canada,the School places emphasis where appropriate on the Canadian geographic, cultural, social, and governmental context in which libraries and archives operate, and introduces students to Canadian systems and services.
