Submitted by: Ramona Matinez

Dr. Ken Haycock, Professor and Director of the School of Library and Information Science at San José State University, was the program speaker at the Affiliated Libraries Fall Assembly on November 5.  After spending 2 hours in traffic to get to Berkeley from San José, Dr. Haycock had a renewed appreciation for students who prefer distance education.  Under Dr. Haycock, SJSU’s SLIS program has grown from 700 to 2,700 students making it the largest accredited SLIS program in the world.  There is also a new Executive MLIS program offered to students already employed in a library looking to advance their careers without leaving their jobs.

Dr. Haycock has drastically changed the way the SJSU SLIS department is run.  At the beginning of his tenure, the entire department engaged in 3 days of strategic planning to come up with a Vision for 2010 statement including a key component of “contribut[ing] to the well-being of our communities.”  The faculty has grown considerably (38.5 faculty with 23 being full-time.)  Faculty meetings have been replaced with quarterly retreats.  SJSU is now nationally ranked by U.S. News and World Report.  In turn, student entrance and exit standards have been raised to 43 credits and a required electronic portfolio demonstrating 15 core competencies.  The average age of SJSU SLIS students has gone down.  Also, fees have doubled since 2005 but are still the lowest for an MLIS.  See slisweb.sjsu.edu for more information.

Classes are offered using 4 delivery modes:  1) fully residential; 2) fully online; 3) hybrid; and 4) the Executive MLS where a cohort of students stays together throughout the program, taking the same classes in core competencies and management skills.  There are 17 different program tracks.

Dr. Haycock opened the floor for questions and a lively discussion ensued.  Regarding jobs for graduates, Dr. Haycock noted that SJSU turns out the top-earning graduates from “L” schools.  Interestingly enough, the Department of Homeland Security was the largest employer of SJSU graduates.  Creativity and mobility are essential for a successful job search.  As an example, Dr. Haycock related a story about Sun Microsystems.  Sun closed its library and let 4 librarians go.  However, they hired 4 graduates to train in Second Life.  Dr. Haycock expressed the opinion that librarianship is a business and we need to get better at marketing.

In response to a question about archives education, Dr. Haycock said there is a program track offered in archives and that there is a real need in the corporate and government sectors for people educated in archives management.  A Master of Archives and Records Administration (MARA) degree is also offered as a cohort program at SJSU.

Finally, in response to a question about funding, Dr. Haycock explained that his program has a melded funding structure where the regular session is state-supported but the special session is fee-based and the revenue goes straight to the school.