The not-so-wonderfully named School of Information Management and Systems at UC Berkeley just announced that it has changed its name to the School of Information (http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/). The previous name lasted only 12 years, replacing the common School of Library and Information Science, which itself replaced School of Librarianship in 1976 (at this rate we might expect further updates on the name in 5 years). The new name mirrors the names of schools at Texas, Michigan, Washington and Florida (that last being a College of Information) and while one may view such a change as trivial, I would agrgue that this is an important signal of change in the academic study of information.
The language of information is shared across disciplines and qualifiers such as ‘science’ ‘studies’ or ‘systems’ evoke a rational but limiting interpretation of this field’s goals and values. If you do not believe that information is a more powerful force in our lives now then ever before then you will not care for any such name change. But if you understand that this is a moment in history where a vast range of issues related to information, from its control to its provision, from its access to its pricing, from its creation to its preservation, are being shaped by us and for us through forces and mechanisms that we need to understand, then the need for schools of information is obvious.
When we changed our name I received many comments – I trust others closer to Berkeley are making their views known. But 5 years ago, the idea of their being a school of information made many uncomfortable here. No doubt the same was said of schools of communication or of education in their day, but who now thinks these labels too general to have meaning? One day, I suspect the same will be true for iSchools. Congratulations Berkeley!
I just like that Apple have taken the same track!
Seriously though, an iSchool rather than a “school of information” is much stronger semantically for me. For sure the “full title” s-h-o-u-l-d be more informative but I have to comment that “information” is indeed a very broad topic for a school…almost a tautology…a school of everything…and maybe it is (they are)…?
With that said I strongly feel that the “iSchool” moniker may well come to dwarf the “full version” and all such discussion will be moot.
Examples of Abbreviation references that few (sadly, now-a-days) care to know the full version of:
PC, radar, laser, OJ as in Simpson, posh, IBM, JPG, GIF, PDF, i.e., e.g., etc 😉
And maybe, just maybe, a few folks from the nascent iPod generation will even enter iSchool for all the “wrong” (cool) reasons but actually learn some of the most important life skills for the 21st century?