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Information Storage and Retrieval

Notes School

The study of school librarianship covers library services for children in schools through secondary
school. In some regions, the local government may have stricter standards for the education and
certification of school librarians (who are often considered a special case of teacher), than for other
librarians, and the educational program will include those local criteria. School librarianship may
also include issues of intellectual freedom, pedagogy, and how to build a cooperative curriculum
with the teaching staff.

Academic

The study of academic librarianship covers library services for colleges and universities. Issues of
special importance to the field may include copyright; technology, digital libraries, and digital
repositories; academic freedom; open access to scholarly works; as well as specialized knowledge
of subject areas important to the institution and the relevant reference works.
Some academic librarians are considered faculty, and hold similar academic ranks as professors,
while others are not. In either case, the minimal qualification is a Master’s degree in Library Studies
or Library Science, and, in some cases, a Master’s degree in another field.

Archives

The study of archives includes the training of archivists, librarians specially trained to maintain
and build archives of records intended for historical preservation. Special issues include physical
preservation of materials and mass deacidification; specialist catalogs; solo work; access; and
appraisal. Many archivists are also trained historians specializing in the period covered by the archive.

Special
Special librarians include almost any other form of librarianship, including those who serve in
medical libraries (and hospitals or medical schools), corporations, news agencies, government
organizations, or other special collections. The issues at these libraries will be specific to the industries
they inhabit, but may include solo work; corporate financing; specialized collection development;
and extensive self-promotion to potential patrons.

Preservation
Preservation librarians most often work in academic libraries. Their focus is on the management of
preservation activities that seek to maintain access to content within books, manuscripts, archival
materials, and other library resources. Examples of activities managed by preservation librarians
includes binding, conservation, digital and analog reformatting, digital preservation, and
environmental monitoring.

Theory and Practice

Many practicing librarians do not contribute to LIS scholarship, but focus on daily operations within
their own libraries or library systems. Other practicing librarians, particularly in academic libraries,
do perform original scholarly LIS research and contribute to the academic end of the field.
On this basis, it has sometimes been proposed that LIS is distinct from librarianship, in a way
analogous to the difference between medicine and doctoring. In this view, librarianship, the
application of library science, would comprise the practical services rendered by librarians in their
day-to-day attempts to meet the needs of library patrons.

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