Library Science Teachers, Postsecondary
Scrub through 149years of this role's history, from when it first emerged, through every wave of technology that reshaped it, to the cited projections for where it's heading next.
The tools that defined the work
Select an era to see how it reshaped the work.
Card catalog and printed classification schedules (Dewey Decimal and LC)
The first library school instructors taught with the tools Melvil Dewey had systematized: the card catalog, the Dewey Decimal Classification (published 1876), and the Library of Congress classification schedules. Instruction was largely hands-on: students practiced physically filing catalog cards, assigning Dewey numbers from printed schedules, and writing descriptive entries by hand. The definitive reference tool was the printed dictionary catalog and the ALA Catalog rules. Teaching cataloging in this era meant transmitting a set of expert procedures that required practice and memory. There was no technology between the faculty member's knowledge and the student's hands; the craft was demonstrated and drilled.
Work toolChanging equipment Research library and scholarly bibliography (Library Quarterly era, 1931)
The University of Chicago Graduate Library School, funded by Carnegie in 1926 and offering only the PhD, transformed the faculty role from practitioner-instructor to research scholar. The launch of The Library Quarterly in 1931 established the disciplinary infrastructure for an academic field: peer review, citation norms, a shared literature. Faculty at the emerging doctoral programs were now expected to produce original research on library administration, information behavior, and bibliographic organization alongside their teaching. The distinction between a library school professor and a practicing librarian began to solidify in this era. The core teaching technology remained the card catalog and printed bibliographic tools, but the intellectual framework shifted from pure craft transmission to empirical inquiry.
Work toolChanging equipment MARC format, online catalogs, and information retrieval systems (DIALOG 1972)
The Library of Congress introduced the MARC (Machine-Readable Cataloging) format in 1966, and OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) launched its shared cataloging database in 1971. These were the two most important technology events in library science between Dewey's card catalog and the public internet. Faculty now had to teach not only the intellectual content of cataloging but also how to create and interpret machine-readable records. The DIALOG retrieval system (launched commercially in 1972) introduced online database searching as a new professional skill, requiring faculty to add information retrieval to their curriculum. The terminal and the MARC workstation entered the classroom. For the first time, library science faculty were teaching students to use computer systems, not just physical tools.
Effect on the workThe MARC era did not reduce faculty positions, but it fundamentally restructured what those faculty needed to know. Programs that could not hire faculty fluent in the new technical standards began falling behind professionally, accelerating the closures of the 1980s.
Work toolChanging equipment CD-ROM databases, Integrated Library Systems, and early internet (1993)
CD-ROM bibliographic databases (InfoTrac, Wilsondisc, MEDLINE on CD) arrived in academic libraries in the mid-1980s and became standard teaching tools in LIS programs through the early 1990s. OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) systems from vendors like NOTIS, Innovative Interfaces, and DRA replaced card catalogs at most academic libraries during this decade. The World Wide Web arrived in 1991-1993 and transformed the information landscape: LIS faculty had to add web searching, URL stability, and digital source evaluation to curricula almost immediately. This decade is also when the "LIS rebranding" accelerated: faculty who had come up through traditional librarianship increasingly needed to credential themselves in computer science, information systems, or human-computer interaction to teach in the evolving programs. The Graduate Library School at Chicago closed in 1989; Columbia's School of Library Service closed in 1992.
Effect on the workThe combination of program closures (Chicago 1989, Columbia 1992, and others through the decade) and the field's restructuring around digital information systems reduced the total LIS faculty pool in the late 1980s and early 1990s, even as the intellectual scope of what those faculty needed to teach expanded dramatically.
Work toolChanging equipment iSchool era: digital libraries, metadata standards, and online MLIS programs
The iSchool movement formalized in 2003 when the "Gang of Ten" (Michigan, Washington, Illinois, UNC, Florida State, Indiana, Texas, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Drexel) organized as the iSchools Caucus. The rebranding from "library school" to "iSchool" or "School of Information" was partly a response to declining enrollment in programs with "library" in their name and partly a genuine intellectual expansion into human-computer interaction, data curation, knowledge management, and social informatics. For faculty, this meant a hiring and tenure shift: new faculty lines increasingly went to information systems researchers, HCI specialists, and data scientists rather than traditional cataloging or reference faculty. Elsevier's ScienceDirect, EBSCO's Discovery Service, ProQuest, and Ex Libris Primo became the teaching and research platforms. Online MLIS programs expanded substantially, increasing adjunct and clinical faculty demand.
Work toolChanging equipment AI discovery and AI-assisted cataloging (Ex Libris Alma AI, OCLC AI cataloging)
Library technology vendors began embedding machine-learning features into ILS platforms during this period. OCLC's AI-assisted cataloging tool auto-suggests MARC fields, subject headings, and authority links, reducing per-record cataloging time for standard materials. Ex Libris integrated AI-powered discovery ranking and personalized recommendations into Primo VE. Springshare added AI-assisted chat triage to LibAnswers. For LIS faculty, these changes created a new instructional layer: students now needed to learn not only how to catalog but how to supervise AI-generated catalog records, recognize systematic bias in AI-suggested subject headings, and make the authority-file judgment calls the AI could not reliably make.
Work toolChanging equipment Generative AI and the AI literacy moment (ChatGPT, Elicit, Perplexity, 2022-present)
The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 placed LIS faculty in an unprecedented position: the core competency their discipline has always claimed (evaluating information sources, understanding how retrieval systems work, teaching critical assessment of AI-generated content) became the most urgently demanded competency in higher education. The ACRL published an AI Literacy Competency Framework for Academic Libraries in 2025, explicitly positioning LIS faculty and the academic librarians they train as the campus authority on responsible AI information use. ALISE established an AI in LIS Education Working Group (2025) with recommendations for integrating AI literacy, AI ethics, and AI-era information retrieval into MLIS and PhD curricula. The Federal Reserve's FEDS Notes analysis of educational exposure to generative AI (Timmerman, February 2025) found an above-average z-score of 0.68 for the Education field, consistent with LIS faculty's text-heavy instruction and research work. Elicit (semantic search across 200M+ papers), Scite (smart citation analysis), and Perplexity became both research tools for LIS faculty and the subject matter of their courses.
Effect on the workALISE's 2025 statistical report and the College and Research Libraries survey (2025) found 78% of LIS faculty revising curriculum in response to AI developments, with 61% identifying AI literacy instruction as the top new competency for MLIS graduates. Rather than contracting the faculty role, the AI moment appears to be expanding its scope: LIS programs are adding AI literacy components to existing courses and, in some cases, creating new faculty positions in AI and information science.
AI audit toolsPattern detection
What credible sources project
Scrub the slider past now to anchor each scenario on the scrubber. The spread is the range of futures credible sources project for this role.
What's shifting in the work right now
The historical view above shows how this role has moved. This is the present-day detail: which AI tools are picking up which tasks, where the edge still is, and the natural directions this work can grow.
What's changing in your day
Three parts of your work where AI is already doing real lifting, and what stays yours.
AI is sitting alongside you herePrepare course materials for MLIS courses — syllabi, annotated reading lists, cataloging exercise datasets, reference scenario handouts, LibGuide assignment briefs, information literacy instruction plan templates, and collection development policy writing guides — using ChatGPT or Claude to accelerate first-draft production, then applying LIS domain expertise to validate accuracy of catalog records, currency of standards references (RDA vs
Prepare course materials for MLIS courses — syllabi, annotated reading lists, cataloging exercise datasets, reference scenario handouts, LibGuide assignment briefs, information literacy instruction plan templates, and collection development policy writing guides — using ChatGPT or Claude to accelerate first-draft production, then applying LIS domain expertise to validate accuracy of catalog records, currency of standards references (RDA vs. BIBFRAME updates, LCSH policy changes), and alignment with ALA core competencies and program learning outcomes.[5],[11]
ChatGPT and Claude can generate a solid first-draft syllabus for an MLIS reference and information services course — with learning objectives, a reading schedule, and assignment prompts — in minutes. The LIS-specific investment is in validating that the catalog records in the cataloging exercise are actually correct per RDA and current LCSH policy, that the "information behavior" readings cited are accurate bibliographic references (AI frequently hallucinates publication years and journal volumes for LIS literature), and that the assignment design reflects current practitioner workflows rather than pre-AI-era practices. Use NotebookLM to build course-material study guides from assigned readings that MLIS students can query asynchronously for factual review, preserving class time for the discussion, hands-on exercises, and scenario-based instruction that online MLIS programs are replacing with passive video viewing.
AI is sitting alongside you hereEvaluate and grade MLIS student assignments — annotated bibliographies, reference interview analyses, cataloging exercises, information literacy instruction plans, collection development policies, and capstone research papers — using Gradescope's AI-assisted answer grouping to cluster similar student responses for rubric-efficient grading of structured exercises, then applying domain expertise to assess the quality of students' professional reasoning about information organization, patron interaction, and source evaluation.
Evaluate and grade MLIS student assignments — annotated bibliographies, reference interview analyses, cataloging exercises, information literacy instruction plans, collection development policies, and capstone research papers — using Gradescope's AI-assisted answer grouping to cluster similar student responses for rubric-efficient grading of structured exercises, then applying domain expertise to assess the quality of students' professional reasoning about information organization, patron interaction, and source evaluation.[12],[13]
Gradescope's answer grouping is particularly well-suited for structured MLIS exercises where there are correct and incorrect answers: cataloging assignments with MARC fields, annotated bibliography entries with verifiable citation accuracy, and reference interview dialogue analyses with scorable elements. Deploy it for all written exercises where your rubric has objectively-assessable criteria, and apply your expert professional judgment to the qualitative dimensions that matter most: does this annotated bibliography entry actually evaluate the source's authority and bias rather than just summarize it? Does this cataloging record reflect genuine understanding of why the subject heading choice matters for patron access? AI detection (Turnitin) is a signal for closer review on writing-intensive assignments, not a substitute for reading with expert LIS eyes.
AI is sitting alongside you hereConduct original research in library and information science — information behavior, digital preservation, knowledge organization, health informatics, AI in libraries, information ethics, or library management — using Elicit and Scite for AI-assisted systematic literature review, NotebookLM for research synthesis, and publishing findings in journals such as College & Research Libraries, Library Quarterly, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, or presenting at ALISE, ASIST, and ALA Annual Conference.
Conduct original research in library and information science — information behavior, digital preservation, knowledge organization, health informatics, AI in libraries, information ethics, or library management — using Elicit and Scite for AI-assisted systematic literature review, NotebookLM for research synthesis, and publishing findings in journals such as College & Research Libraries, Library Quarterly, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, or presenting at ALISE, ASIST, and ALA Annual Conference.[14],[15]
Elicit's semantic search across 200M+ papers and Scite's citation-context analysis (supporting vs. contrasting vs. mentioning citations) compress the literature-mapping phase of LIS research from 20+ hours to hours, with the added benefit that Scite flags retractions and citation distortions that manually-compiled literature reviews frequently miss. Keep the research question formulation, the methodological design (whether a user study requires qualitative methods or log analysis, which IRB protocols apply, how to operationalize "information behavior" for your population), and the interpretive contribution as the irreducibly human intellectual core — these are what ALISE reviewers, tenure committees, and journal editors evaluate. Researchers whose systematic reviews now take a fraction of former time can publish more — but only if the human contribution is substantive enough to clear peer review.
Where this role is heading
Natural next steps for someone with your foundation: not exits, evolutions.
Education Administrators, Postsecondary
LIS faculty who have served on ALA accreditation self-study teams, led MLIS curriculum revision committees, chaired program assessment working groups, or directed library school distance education programs have directly developed the skill set for associate dean, dean, or program director roles in iSchools and broader colleges of computing and information. The CRI increase reflects that postsecondary education administration (+7% BLS 2024-2034) is growing and moderately AI-augmented — with AI tools for enrollment analytics, accreditation documentation, and program assessment dashboards that administrators deploy — while the strategic leadership, governance authority, and stakeholder management of the role are highly resistant to AI displacement. The faculty-to-administration path in LIS programs is well-structured, with clear stepping-stones through program director and associate dean roles in iSchool units.
- · ALA Committee on Accreditation self-study authorship: evidence-based documentation of MLIS program quality across all ALA accreditation standards; continuous improvement planning; site visit preparation and response
- · Higher education budget management: faculty line planning, operating budget requests, online program revenue modeling, grant overhead negotiation for IMLS and state library development grants
- · Enrollment management for MLIS programs: pipeline partnerships with libraries and information organizations, scholarship design for underrepresented populations in LIS, transfer and articulation agreements with community college library technician programs
- · IMLS grant writing and management: Institute of Museum and Library Services Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grant applications; reporting requirements and program evaluation for federal grant-funded LIS programs
- · Faculty recruitment and tenure review: search committee leadership for LIS faculty positions; promotion and tenure facilitation; faculty development programming for AI integration in LIS instruction and research
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