School of Information Management & Systems   Spring 2000.
285 Design of Library Services.   Michael Buckland.

Why take this course?

1. Libraries are intrinsically interesting institutions. Academic, public, school, and special (mainly specialized, esp. if in a corporate setting) library services play an important role in the communities they serve. This course is designed to be suitable for people who are interested in library services without any intentional of ever being employed in one.

2. This course is unusual in drawing on all aspects of information management in the real world, combining economic, ethical, managerial, political, social and technical realities, architecture, marketing, personal values, and how to cope as a professional in an organization --- all in a situation in which the means for service are being fundamentally redesigned. In that sense it this course can reasonably be viewed as an extended case-study of information management in action.

3. You'll become a more effective user of libraries.

4. You might want to have an option on becoming a librarian. Librarianship is a established profession with a with long tradition of being useful, of public service, and innovation. Taking this course and also both 245 Organization of Information in Collections, and 290-4 Classification and Bibliographical Representation provides a plausible basis for claiming that the SIM's Master's degree constitutes a suitable preparation for working in a library, even though accreditation has been deferred.

If that is not enough, ask me and I think of some more.