Library science professors

Three parts of your work where AI is already doing real lifting, and what stays yours.

• Card catalog1887–1930

  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.

• Research library1930–1965

  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.

• MARC format1965–1986

  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 work

  The 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.

• CD-ROM databases1986–2000

  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 work

  The 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.

• iSchool era2000–2015

  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.

• AI discovery2015–2022

  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.

• Generative AI2022–present

  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. 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 work

  ALISE'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.