Interdepartmental Training Program for Science Information Specialists at the University of Illinois

TEMPTING STUDENTS with scientific and technical backgrounds into the library profession is no easy feat. Special librarians rarely bask in the reflected glamour of the scientist or scholar; although they are often credited with invaluable assistance, such assistance is seldom considered newsworthy. Many potential scientific and technical librarians are either unaware of the urgent need for specialists with the ability and training to collect, digest, synthesize, and organize rapidly increasing scientific information or fear that specializing in control of scientific information will remove them from active participation in the scientific community. A six-year Interdepartmental Training Program for Science Information Specialists at the University of Illinois, financed by a grant from the National Science Foundation and conducted by the Graduate School of Library Science, has provided experience with and some success in recruiting well-qualified students with scientific and technical backgrounds, encouraging them to complete the program, and placing most of them in responsible positions as technical librarians or science information specialists in libraries and laboratories throughout the