Advising

Beginning in their first semester, all students are assigned a faculty advisor for the duration of the program. The student must meet with the Faculty Advisor each semester to discuss academic plans and get approval for course registration. The advising process includes discussion of course selection, course load, academic and professional goals.

At each advising session with your Faculty Advisor, you will fill in the Student Advising Guidelines (clicking on this link will open a PDF document). A copy of this document will remain in your Program student folder and will allow you and your advisor to trace the history of your classes and experiences.

As part of becoming a professional, students are required to maintain their own copy of the Student Advising Guidelines document, and to fill it in each semester to keep track of their progress throughout their Program in requirements and electives, scholarships and awards, and professional group participation.

When seeking information about courses, you should feel free to talk to many different people in addition to your Faculty Advisor: classmates, other faculty members, and librarians can be great resources for learning more about courses. If you have questions about a specific course, it's a good idea to find out who is teaching the course and ask them directly - or you can look at our course descriptions page for previous years' syllabi and professors.

Finally, choosing your courses can be an overwhelming experience, but with an understanding of the resources and information presented here and elsewhere we hope to make it a rewarding one as well!

Course Selection

Required Courses

There are 5 required courses (15 credits) in the LIS Program:

• LIS 601 Intro to Reference & Information Services
• LIS 605 Basic Cataloging & Classification
• LIS 610 The Information Environment
• LIS 615 Collection Management
• LIS 650 Management of Libraries & Information Centers

In addition, there is a technology requirement of a choice of two courses (6 credits) from the following:

• LIS 647 Systems Analysis for Information Management
• LIS 663 Basic Database Searching
• LIS 670 Intro to Information Science & Technology
• LIS 671 Digital Librarianship
• LIS 672 Technology for Libraries & Information Centers
• LIS 678 Personalized Info Delivery: Info Filtering
• ICS 624 Advanced Data Management
• ICS 691 Information Architecture

Students in the School Library Media Specialist track have additional requirements as well.

Elective Courses

Beyond the required courses and technology requirements, students can choose 7 more electives from the course offerings for a total of 14 courses (42 credits). Students can work with their advisors to pick courses that match their personal interests, professional goals and the LIS core competencies. We encourage students to pick courses that will form a well-rounded LIS education, rather than to narrow their focus too quickly.

Keep in mind also that not all courses are offered every semester: some are even offered only every two or three years. Look at the Tentative Four-year Schedule of Classes for a ballpark idea of what is going to be offered, and talk with your Faculty Advisor about the scheduling for these infrequent courses.

Core Competencies

As of July 2007, the LIS Program is integrating into the curriculum nine Core Competencies, as defined by the American Library Association, which express the range of skills and understanding that form the core of librarianship. (For a more detailed explanation, please see our Core Competencies page.) All of the LIS courses have been mapped to these nine competencies in terms of whether a certain competency is of "Primary Emphasis (P)", "Secondary Emphasis (S)", or not emphasized in that class. Students are encouraged to choose a broad variety of classes which will enable them to build a strong foundation in each of the Core Competencies.

Areas of Emphasis

The LIS Program offers two tracks: the School Library Media Specialist Certification, and the General Track. Within the General Track, students can specialize further according to professional goal: Academic Librarianship, Hawaiian/Pacific & Asian Resources, Library Automation/Information Technology, Public Librarianship, and Special Librarianship. These areas of emphasis are not hard-and-fast tracks, but rather a set of suggested courses that will provide additional experience and understanding in a certain specialization.

Course Load

The LIS Program advises students:

• Take no more than 9 credits per semester as a full time student. Students wanting to take more than 12 credits need to complete this form (PDF, Word Doc) to appeal the LIS Program limit.
• Take even fewer credits if you are working or have other obligations.
• Limit yourself to one LIS course at a time during a three-week summer session or two classes in a 6-week session.

The first two are general guidelines: you can take more or fewer classes in a regular semester as you determine your capabilities. However, students are not allowed to take more than one three-week summer course at a time, due to the intense nature of the compressed time period. You can take two 6-week summer courses concurrently. When figuring out how many courses to enroll in, take into account that each 3-credit class is supposed to account for 9 hours of homework each week.

Full-time student status for graduate students is 8 credits; you must be at least a half-time (4 credit) student to be eligible for financial aid. Graduate students may not take more than 16 credits in one semester.

Students receiving Tuition Waivers need to take at least 8 credits of LIS Courses offered by the Day School. This includes HITS courses offered at Manoa, but does not include any course labeled as [OC] in the schedule.

Academic and Professional Goals

Why did you decide to join the LIS Program? What kind of work do you enjoy doing? What kind of information professional do you want to be? These are questions that you should think about as you move through the LIS Program - but you don't have to decide right away! We encourage students to take many different kinds of classes to create a broad foundation for professional life - you never know what might interest you. Also it's not uncommon for a librarian to do many kinds of tasks on the job, and broad preparation will help you in your first jobs.

Some ideas to think about while you are in the LIS Program:

• Read the website carefully and be familiar with the requirements for graduation. Don't let anything surprise you in your last semester!
• Investigate scholarship and paid internship opportunities to help finance your education.
• Review the information presented by the various professional organizations and in the alumni profiles - this will show you the many kinds of jobs MLISc degree holders have and may help you decide what direction you want to take.
• Participate in one of the student groups to showcase your professional involvement and perhaps your leadership abilities.
• Look at the internships for credit - these are a unique opportunity to get professional experience while a student.
• Think about the kind of research you might want to do. You can write a thesis for the MLISc degree, take an LIS699 Directed Reading and/or Research class, and you can always get help in trying to publish any papers you write. This is an important step for future professionals!
• Create and maintain an ePortfolio to show off your coursework, resume and various experiences to prospective employers.
• Have fun! Library Students are a talented, generous and smart group of people who can inspire each other to great things. Enjoy your experience in your classes and your work!

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