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News Release

Last modified: Thursday, April 23, 2009

IU's SLIS ranked seventh in nation by 'U.S. News'

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 23, 2009

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University's School of Library and Information Science has been ranked among the best in the nation in the latest edition of U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Graduate Schools."

The School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) was ranked seventh in the country, and three of its specialty programs also were highly regarded. The rankings, based on a 2008 survey of dean's program directors and senior faculty members at 50 schools with accredited master's degree programs, listed IU's SLIS seventh in digital librarianship, eighth in information systems and 10th in school library media.

The seventh-place ranking was the highest among the eight IU graduate schools and programs named to the top 25 in their respective fields by the magazine. In 2006, the last time rankings in library and information studies were compiled, IU's SLIS tied for seventh.

"Our faculty members are among the hardest working and most creative in library and information science. They are widely published and study after study shows that they are among the most highly cited scholars in their fields, nationally and internationally," noted SLIS Dean Blaise Cronin. "Of course, we cannot rest on our laurels, and we are continuously refining and refreshing our curriculum. By way of illustration, new career opportunities have emerged in areas such as data curatorship, digital archiving, records management and digital repository management."

The full rankings by U.S. News and World Report were released to the public online at https://www.usnews.com today, and on on newsstands and in the "America's Best Graduate Schools" guidebook Monday (April 27).

In 2006 an international study of library science programs by Swedish sociologists found that IU's SLIS faculty were the most commonly cited by their peers around the globe, and that same year researchers at University of Missouri-Columbia found that same faculty were the most productive in the U.S.

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