Had a great trip to UBC a couple of weeks back to speak at the SLAIS inaugural Johnson Memorial Lecture, a new series funded through the generosity of Stephen Johnson to honor his parents. As I noted in my talk, funding for such a series is a tremendous gift to the field and I was delighted to accept the invitation and to engage in broader dialog across the school and university with interested people, as arranged by the hosts. If there’s a more attractive campus than UBC, with its gardens, walking spaces and proximity to the ocean, then I’ve not seen it yet. The school itself has a pretty fine new space in the new Barber Learning Center, a pleasing architectural mix of the old with the contemporary that makes dramatic use of glass.
I was greatly impressed with the students and the level of interest there in advancing both the archives and librarianship aspects of information within one program, but I don’t think they liked my idea of changing their name to the School of Information just to make it easier. The best schools are wrestling with identity and coverage but this is not a bad thing, if the debate is constructive and concerned with advancing shared vision rather than defending territory (and I don’t say this just because I came back to face a deadline for a report on our progress since accreditation, but I admit, I seem to spend so much time explaining to outside agencies what we are doing that it’s getting hard to find the time to do what they want me to explain).