More name change shenanigans

Rutgers University SCILS is the latest information and library school to announce a name change, on top of McGill’s recent re-titling. The rather ungainly School of Communication, Information & Library Studies will become the (slightly) less ungainly School of Communication and Information. This change has caused more of a tempest in the teapot than usual as evinced by the recent entry in Library Journal which talked of typos, lack of communication and jettisoning. I am rather intrigued by the existence now of several colleges or schools of communication and information as it suggests these fields are converging, though I’d like to hear some explanation from others on how they see this relationship. Communication programs have their own history of mergers, departmental divisions and label confusion, and programs in journalism have been experiencing many problems in recent years so we may be in the midst of larger shifts than are witnessed by the iSchool movement alone. I believe these name-changes are indicative of positive and profound consideration of our disciplines’ coverage and concerns but it’s easy to lose sight of this in the passionate defense of labels that often surround these discussions.