I moderated a panel of deans at ASIST 2006, all there to discuss the iSchool movement (formerly ‘project’, now ‘caucus’). Panelists were Ray von Dran of Syracuse, Olivia Frost of Michigan, Jim Thomas of PSU, Michelle Cloonan of Simmons, and Linda Smith of Illinois. Almost 100 people turned up at 8am Monday morning to engage and we went to the floor pretty quickly after some introductory remarks from all to learn what people thought. There were more comments and questions than we could get to (and one or two speeches from people who probably wanted to be on the panel) but generally there seemed to be a pattern to the questions.
Many wanted to know what we thought we were up to creating a caucus of schools (the question was phrased many ways but this was the gist). The answer, of course, was ‘to create a new field’. This answer seemed to convince most but not all, and it was with some relief on my part that Marcia Bates stood up and asked if it wasn’t about time that we stopped saying this and actually told people what we thought the new field was. Amen sister! When the ‘new’ answer starts to get old, as it has, it might be time for another one. I have a view but I’ll save that for another entry.
Quite rightly, some seasoned faculty members pointed out that the gathering of deans to talk about a new field was hardly going to be very exciting. We all agreed, that is why there has been an iSchool conference for the last two years to which doctoral students and faculty have flocked. Cue mumbles about how another conference based on this was bad for ASIST and why hadn’t the iSchool deans worked more with ASIST, which led to handwringing from all concerned but the truth is that the iSchool caucus is wary of affiliating with any professional society at this time so as to avoid alienating anyone. Fortunately nobody mentioned the links with CRA (oops). More directly, the caucus is not intended to be another professional society and it may even be only a temporary organization aimed at advancing the ‘new field’ (TM) before riding off into the sunset once it becomes clear that people respond to the term ‘Information School’ with something other than a blank stare. At least, this is my dream — let’s get the field understood a bit better and then move on (and please, no jokes about how many deans does it take to make a field understood?)
There were a number of comments about where the idea for an ischool movement orginated and the history of various developments at schools such as Pitt and Syracuse were outlined. Clearly this is not an overnight development but has been brewing for years, maybe decades. This led to discussion of how being ‘in’ the iSchool consortium could or might benefit our various programs locally and nationally. There is no doubt that many schools feel they should be included and, as a result, feel excluded by the requirements to have a doctoral program, sufficient external grants, and a direct report to the campus provost or chancellor. Naturally these criteria for membership were discussed and I believe most people were happy to learn that the iSchool Caucus has agreed to make affiliation a much more open affair going forward. Stay tuned but you can watch for updates at http://www.ischools.org/oc/
There is no major conspiracy afoot (sorry!). Rather there is a genuine attempt being made here by a group of schools to place the information field on a more stable and yes, visible platform. The schools involved are united by a dream of the future more than an identification with the past and it is possible that with this group taking the lead, many more schools involved in the human and social aspects of information across its lifecycle will benefit. Or we can just argue amongst ourselves, right?