The Department of Media, Culture and Creative Industries at City is home to an international centre of excellence, committed to the development of library and information science (LIS) as an academic discipline and vocational practice.
Library and Information Science is concerned with the processes and activities of keeping the record of humankind.
City offers an MSc programme in Information Science and an MSc/MA in Library Science. Both courses are accredited by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) as a qualification for entry into the profession. We also offer an MPhil /PhD in Library and Information Science.
About
Library and Information Science is concerned with the processes and activities of keeping the record of humankind.
Our activities build curriculum on a longstanding tradition of excellence in teaching and research within the field of library and information science. This has its origins in the work of Jason Farradane who established the first Centre for Information Science at City in 1961.
We welcome students from all backgrounds, who have an interest in entering, or progressing within, the information professions.
Our teaching curriculum emphasises both traditional and digital media, engagement with digital scholarship, and outreach. We benefit enormously from our London location, with ready access to a wealth of collections, exhibitions and colleagues, which inspires innovation and creative thinking.
Our courses
We offer postgraduate courses in Library Science and Information Science.
Both courses are accredited by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) as a qualification for entry into the profession.
The courses are ideal for anyone wishing to progress their career in library or information work, and for those interested in updating their knowledge and experience of modern information communication.
The criteria for accreditation of all UK LIS programmes can be found in CILIP’s Professional Knowledge Skills Base scheme (PKSB).
We also offer an MPhil/PhD programme.
Definition
Library and Information Science (LIS) is a long-standing academic discipline, with its own set of theories, perspectives and methods. It studies all aspects of the creation, organisation, management, communication and use of recorded information in documents of all kinds, including new forms of digital and immersive documents.
It underlies a variety of practices such as information management, librarianship, data management, and archiving and records management, educating professionals for work in those areas, and carrying out research to improve practice.
While the roots of LIS are in bibliography, the efforts over several centuries to make published information organised and accessible, modern LIS grew from the documentation movement of the mid-twentieth century, which sought to use new technologies to make specialised knowledge better accessible.
It is a broad subject, with its interests sometimes distinguished as, on the one hand, information in all its aspects and manifestations, information in specific domains and contexts, and technology applications ('information science') and on the other as collection management, information literacy development, and services to communities and culture ('Library Science').
However, the overlaps in interest are so great that it is best to think of a single discipline.
LIS overlaps with a number of other disciplines and professions, including computing and information systems, media and publishing, digital humanities and e-science, and cultural heritage studies. Activities in these overlap areas is one of the most exciting aspects of modern LIS.