Undergraduate library and information studies programs in North America

137 Abstract. All 57 library and information studies programs in the United States that are accredited by the American Library Association offer master's degrees to candidates who already have at least a bachelor's degree in some other subject. The dominance of the graduate route to professional qualifi­ cation, however, has not gone unchallenged, whether viewed in a historical or a contemporary con­ text. First, it took seventy years from the establishment of the first library school in the United States for graduate programs to become the standard. Second, many undergraduate LIS programs do func­ tion in North America, albeit without a stamp of approval from the American Library Association. Third, critics of the graduate program as the only way to professional qualifications continue to argue the case for undergraduate programs, either in parallel with or as a precursor of graduate programs. And fourth, some schools with accredited LIS master's programs are establishing new undergraduate programs in specialised areas like information systems or information management. 1. Visibility of Master's programs It is easy for an outsider to conclude that in the United States and Canada all first­ level qualifications in the field of library and information studies (LIS) are awarded by a graduate-level master's degree. The most prominent schools in both countries provide only this route to a first professional LIS qualification. To many observers on the North-American continent and beyond, LIS education is the bailiwick of the fifty American and seven Canadian schools currently hosting accredited Master's pro­ grams. Accreditation .. - the North-American method of ensuring a minimum educa­ tional standing in programs in many professional fields, including library and infor­ mation studies - is granted for LIS programs in both the United States and Canada by the Committee on Accreditation of the American Library Association. This Commit­ tee, however, accredits only programs leading to a master's degree (1). As the policy statement of the Council of the American Library Association expressed it in 1988: "The master's degree from a program accredited by the American Library Associa­ tion is the appropriate professional degree for librarians" (2). Entrants to the schools offering sueh Master's programs must have completed an undergraduate degree, and normally this will be in a discipline other than library studies. In many other countries around the world a second route is provided to LIS quali­ fications - an undergraduate degree, either as the sole means to gaining professional recognition or as an alternative to a first-level graduate qualification. A program of