In the modern landscape of instantaneous information, complaints of oversaturation and chaos are frequent. You get more than you need -- but often still can’t answer your questions. The googles and boogles, blogs and gogs aren’t making us any smarter. Enter the information educator and the “i-schools.” For them the “information age” offers an opportunity to bridge the divide between people and technology – with help from earliest information brokers: the librarians.

With the passion of a two-day tent revival before September’s brewing hurricane swept inland, seven deans from the country’s top information and library science schools gathered in Chapel Hill at the UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS) to tout the relevance of their educational arena, which officially is only about 30 years old -- and explore emerging directions. While broad-based information programs began to emerge in the late 1970s, it is in the past five to 10 years that the field has really taken off. Information professionals are employed as information architects, information systems managers, Web developers, information scientists, librarians, network administrators, systems analysts and computer user support specialists.

In the meeting organized by SILS Dean Joanne Gard Marshall, the group met privately to hear from a marketing expert on branding and identity over Sunday morning breakfast, entered into soul-searching dialogue, honed in on key messages, and speculated on new directions for education, research and careers in the 21st century. The next morning, they shared their thoughts from the weekend summit in a public panel discussion titled “The Information Schools Movement.” The early morning panel drew an audience of about 50 people to UNC’s Wilson Library.

“Information schools are the result of a social movement,” said Mike Eisenberg of the University of Washington Information School. “When we wake up in the morning, how do we look at the world? I look at the information flow. That is what rules and binds us.”

In addition to Eisenberg, the panel comprised Marshall as moderator; John King, University of Michigan School of Information; David Fenske, Drexel University College of Information Science and Technology; Ron Larsen, University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences; Jane Robbins, Florida State University School of Information Studies; John Unsworth, University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science; and Ray Von Dran, Syracuse University School of Information Studies.

UNC at Chapel Hill Provost Robert Shelton, who opened the panel discussion, talked about the severe shortage of information science workers in the United States, and he described the schools as having “an unprecedented opportunity – indeed, obligation” to be the premier sources of education for a wide range of information professionals.

The panel’s key points are that the information science field is emerging and must better shape and project a public identity; the field is highly collaborative and partnerships are wide ranging; information schools must conduct more research and attract regular funding sources; the information science field evolved from library science traditions; library science is inextricably linked to information science; salaries of librarians must increase; there exists overlap between library science and information science professions; and the success of the developing information science field depends upon collaboration and cooperation of information science schools, of which there are about 50 in the country.

Discussion focused on today’s relevance of the information science field. Marshall asserted that society’s ability to grapple with the enormous flow of information will define its politics and history: “Free and open information is the pillar of a democratic society. We have so much information that we now need filters to process it. Who designs and controls those filters?” How will others interpret the messages and “make sense out of chaos,” added Ron Larsen, dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences. Indeed, if society is experiencing “the unstoppable train,” furthered Eisenberg, what are the implications of a relentless technology on quality of life?

The primary question, and perhaps the most difficult, was to define the information science field, which is challenging due to its multidisciplinary nature. While it involves fields such as computer science, engineering and the social sciences, all agreed that its attention to the combination of people, information and technology sets it apart. The role of an information scientist is analogous to an architect designing a building, proposed David Fenske of the Drexel University College of Information Science and Technology, because of the way in which a designer combines technical and creative approaches to solving human-centered problems.

The field’s attention to the human condition is directly attributed to its kinship with librarianship, said Jane Robbins of the Florida State University School of Information Studies. But while service is its hallmark, more emphasis must be placed on research for the field to gain recognition, she added. Dean Ray Von Dran said that Syracuse University School of Information Studies dropped the “Library” from its name about 20 years ago, but a client- and patron-centered orientation is still very much part of its culture and the information science profession in general.

“We want to make information work for people,” Von Dran said.

In closing, John King of the University of Michigan School of Information said the emergence of the information field has arisen from the social necessity for collecting, ordering, managing – and ultimately, the human desire for understanding, discovery and knowledge.

“There is a mythology about the Dark Ages – that nothing much happened,” King said. “It’s not true, of course. The Dark Ages were termed such because collections dispersed, leading to a systematic breakdown of social memory. We’re not going to collect and keep everything. We will impose an order. This comes back to values.

“Our choices about how information is constructed will shape this society. This is the major calling that our schools are undertaking.”