Librarianship and Information Management

What do you come out with? BA or BSc

Why do it? Because your bookshelves at home are stacked in alphabetical order and separated by genre. Because you like technology, have a penchant for knowing exactly where things are, and because you are a natural organiser. This is not a degree for the old fashioned but for future managers. A new dawn of librarian has arrived...are you in?

What's it about? In the last decade or so the degree typically known as “librarianship” has evolved into a new hybrid subject dubbed “information management”, “information studies” or “knowledge management” depending on who you ask. It’s no longer about the painstaking cataloguing of books in public or academic libraries, although the skills of archiving and indexing are still pertinent. These days the degree is really broad and is a cross between computer science and management. It covers really technical stuff such as databases and software development, e-commerce and search engine optimisation. Because hi-tech information systems are crucial to the running of any big business or organisation, the job prospects for this degree are much more diverse than simply getting behind the book trolley at your local library. You need to be confident with the technology, but the approach is more analytical because it requires you to think how to make the technology in hand work for the results you need, rather than how to programme machines to do the job for you. At degree level it’s quite rare. Only 10 places offer it and the annual intake isn’t very big. Courses are on offer at Sheffield, Loughborough, Brunel, Aberystwyth, Brighton, Northumbria, Liverpool John Moores, Leeds Metropolitan, Manchester Metropolitan and London South Bank - and of those only Manchester Met actually calls its degree “librarianship”.

How long is a degree? Three years. But you can opt to take a year out in industry at Loughborough and Sheffield, making it four years.

What are the students like? Students with orderly minds are to be found on this course. They are a walking catalogue of useful information and are always affably ready to share it. So long as you don’t talk too loudly in the reading room, that is?Slightly more popular with boys than girls, the stereotype of old has been replaced by snappily dressed, technically savvy types who socialise and have fun. Famous former librarians include poet Philip Larkin, children’s authors Lewis Carroll and Philip Pullman and novelist Elizabeth Taylor.

How is it packaged? At Sheffield the course is usually 80 per cent coursework to 20 per cent exams, although there is the option to take 100 per cent course work units. At Loughborough you spend your first year getting up to speed with the basics of the technology, but also studying statistics and management models. In the second year you look at database design and support tools. And in the third year you focus on the specialism of your choice. At Aberystwyth, the first year is treated a bit like a foundation, so everyone gets on an even keel with the techie side, while the second and third years are dedicated to general managerial principles and their applications to libraries, information services and data storage.

What A-levels do you need? Anything goes, but English Literature and Computing are helpful.

What grades? You need 200 UCAS points to get onto the Manchester Metropolitan course; Northumbria asks for 260 UCAS points; Aberystwyth wants 180 points or relevant work experience. Loughborough asks for 320 UCAS points.

Will you be interviewed? Not usually, no.

Will it keep you off the dole? Depends where you go – Sheffield and Loughborough have an 80 per cent graduate employment rating for the subject; while Northumbria has 65 per cent; Aberystwyth 60 per cent; Brighton 55 per cent; and Manchester Metropolitan 45 per cent. And yes, you’ve guessed it, graduates get jobs working in public and academic libraries, but also in big businesses, government departments and international organisations. “It’s a much more open degree in terms of the jobs students go into afterwards than you might expect,” says Sheila Webber, former course coordinator and first year tutor at Sheffield. “This is probably because information systems are needed everywhere.”

What do students say? “I was made redundant from the banking sector last year so I looked around for a degree that was connected with business and I stumbled across information studies. It gives you a highly different skill set which is really valuable for your employability. In view of the banking crisis, I always say that if the banks had handled their data better then things might have turned out differently,” says Nqobile Makhanda, a second year information studies student at Sheffield.

Where's best for teaching? Loughborough came top for teaching with 4.30 out of 5 in the National Student Survey. Sheffield got 4.12; Northumbria 3.88; Brunel 3.84; and Liverpool John Moores 3.73.

Where's best for research? Sheffield scored highest in the Research Assessment Exercise with 2.85; Brunel got 2.55; Loughborough 2.50; Aberystwyth and Leeds Metropolitan 2.45.

Where's the cutting edge? They’re pretty much all cutting edge as it’s such a rare degree, but Sheffield and Loughborough are at the sharp end for keeping on top of evolving technology and research. Brunel, Aberystwyth and Brighton are also good.

Who are the stars? At Sheffield Professor Sheila Corrall is head of department, Professor Bob Usherwood lectures about public libraries resource management, Mark Sanderson “is a whiz at search engines”, Professor Peter Willet is “the top person in the world for chemo-informantics,” and Dr Ana Vasconcelos is an expert in organisational theory. At Loughborough, Professor Richard Wilson, founding editor of international journal Accounting Education, is a visiting tutor until 2010. Also at Loughborough, Dr Graham Walton is the service development manager at the university library.

Related courses: You can do a two-year foundation in Libraries, Museums and Archives at Truro and Penwith College. At Cardiff you can take Computer Science with Knowledge and Information Systems. At Nottingham Trent you can take a Management and Information Systems BA.