Master of Library & Information Science (MLIS)
The UCLA Master of Library & Information Science (MLIS) seeks to prepare professionals who are innovative leaders and advocates for information services that engage with diverse communities and are dedicated to the role of information in transforming human society. We believe that information services are fundamentally social and cultural, and we are motivated by a commitment to social justice, equitable access to information, and the ethical design and use of information technology. Our graduates are forward thinking and historically aware, knowledgeable of critically informed public discourse, and committed to engagement and participation across a plurality of communities. They act as policy makers, designers, creators, collectors, and preservers of information.
We prepare our graduates through a program that combines a year of face-to-face courses addressing the theoretical foundations, skills and values of the information professions with an additional year of advanced specialization in an area of defined personal and professional interest. In-class coursework and the rich academic resources of UCLA are combined with practical skills developed through internships and other practical engagements with libraries, archives, museums, and community-based organizations in Los Angeles as well as across the US and internationally.
Fundamental to this mission is an understanding of information within a pluralistic society, and that graduates need to have the cultural competency to develop appropriate information services for individual communities and advocate for their needs. Graduates are expected to understand and critique historical and contemporary information services, and contribute to the development of the innovative and ethical information services of the future. Fundamentally, students must understand the full range of information as cultural artifacts (as digital and analog documents, records, objects, images and sound), and how communities create, access, preserve and use information in a variety of local and global settings.
The UCLA MLIS program is accredited by the American Library Association (ALA) and is one of the most innovative and comprehensive in the country. Our graduates are highly successful and accomplished information professionals who work in a wide variety of institutions after graduation.
MLIS Program Information
- Standardization and integration of student learning outcomes
- Integration of learning outcomes with school, department, and program objectives
- Individualization of the learning process
- Integration of formal knowledge, values, and relevant professional experience
- Development of habits of inquiry, innovation, and leadership
- Formation of our students’ professional identities
The goals of the UCLA MLIS program include:
- To provide students with a coherent program of study that includes broad preparation in foundational knowledge and skills as well as opportunities to cultivate more specialized areas of interest
- To ensure that students have the cultural competency to engage with and advocate for a diverse range of information environments
- To provide students with the technological and intellectual fluency, ethics, skills and knowledge necessary to thrive, innovate and critically intervene in a diverse range of information environments
- To ensure that all students are enabled to take advantage of a broad array of professionally appropriate internship and field experience opportunities
- Review existing specializations to assess and enhance their effectiveness and responsiveness to emerging professional and technological directions; map curricula onto relevant professional standards and guidelines; and identify potential new specializations.
- Develop and implement joint curricular initiatives that will enrich and expand the MLIS scope in line with our values.
- Seek advice from the professionals, organizations and projects that employ our graduates to help align the MLIS curriculum with their needs, and to proactively identify and prepare students to meet emerging needs and practices.
- Implement specific skills training around data creation, preservation, management, and access and other areas through short courses and workshops.
- Integrate additional community-based and experiential learning opportunities such as expert interaction and hands-on workshops.
- Assess and identify opportunities within existing or new courses to critically examine the environmental impact of information technologies and other sustainability concerns raised by an information society.
- Increase paid internship opportunities at a range of sites and types of work.
- Create opportunities for students to connect with potential mentors and develop meaningful, supportive professional and peer mentoring relationships.
MLIS program graduates will be able to:
- Demonstrate their professional knowledge, skills and ethical values in their understanding of information and information practices and services.
- Identify current and past theories and practices in information services, critique them, and advocate for more meaningful and equitable practices for the access, use and preservation of information.
- Identify and critique information as a variety of cultural media and practices–including those that are intangible, analog and digital–and describe how they contribute to systems of knowledge and power in a pluralistic society, from local communities to global systems.
- Assume leadership roles in providing information services appropriate for the communities that are served, in a variety of settings such as libraries, archives, museums and community organizations.
- Use evidence, communicate effectively, innovate, and advocate for their professional values as part of their evolving individual professional identity.
The MLIS core curriculum provides a coherent program of study for all MLIS students. Each core course is taught face-to-face by a member of regular faculty. Each course includes the needs and perspectives of every MLIS specialization, and each addresses issues relating to ethics and values.
After completing the MLIS core, students will be able to articulate key concepts, advocate fundamental values, formulate policies, and demonstrate the advanced intellectual, technological, and managerial skills needed to practice, lead, and innovate in the information professions. They will also be able to apply the highest ethical standards in their professional information practice. They will appreciate the needs of diverse communities and be able to design and provide systems and services that are appropriate in a multicultural society. Every core course is offered every year. Full-time MLIS students are normally expected to complete all of the core courses during their first year.
Archival Studies
Courses in this area explore the full spectrum of archival materials (e.g., paper and electronic records, manuscripts, still and moving images, oral history), the theory that underlies recordkeeping, archival policy development, and memory-making, and the historical roles that recordkeeping, archives, and documentary evidence play in a pluralized and increasingly global society. In addition to covering traditional archives and manuscripts theory and practice, this area of specialization addresses the dramatic expansion of the archival field. Advanced seminars and an outstanding array of internship opportunities prepare students to play leadership roles in archives and manuscripts administration, records management, archival education and training, preservation, digital curatorship, recordkeeping policy development, archival systems design, electronic records management, and digital asset management.
Informatics
The field of informatics is premised on the observation that successful integration of information services into society requires a sophisticated understanding of the ways in which information technologies function as vehicles of power and social action. Students who complete this specialization will be uniquely well-equipped to design modern information services, including digital libraries, data repositories, metadata services, and search engines, in a wide variety of institutional contexts, such as community archives, cultural heritage, e-commerce, electronic publishing, and government. Courses explore theories of information-seeking behavior and information use, user-centered approaches to information system design, human-computer interaction, database design and management, and information policy, including intellectual property, informational privacy, and internet governance.
Library Studies
Students selecting this specialization learn about the functional activities associated with the profession of librarianship, such as collection development, public services, cataloging and classification, service to children and young adults, and outreach to underserved populations. Students may also take classes that prepare them to work in a particular type of library, such as public, academic, or corporate. The specialization stresses the core values of the profession as articulated by the American Library Association: access, confidentiality and privacy, democracy, education and lifelong learning, intellectual freedom, preservation, the public good, professionalism, service, and social responsibility. When students graduate, not only will they have the basic professional skills expected of all beginning librarians, they will also have an understanding of the dynamic nature of the field that will enable them to develop as leaders for the profession.
Media Archival Studies
The Media Archival Studies (MAS) specialization focuses on the full range of historical, contemporary, and emergent media-making contexts and formats and the unique challenges they pose, from 19th-century optical devices through classical Hollywood cinema to the emerging sound, image, and video formats of today. Students in this specialization explore how theories and concepts of archival practice are most effectively applied to the particular needs and characteristics of all kinds of recorded media. This broad-based approach to media making, description, preservation and management encourages students to develop a highly adaptable professional skill set that allows them to keep pace in an environment of constant technological change. Classes and seminars are complemented with opportunities for practicum and internship experiences at world-class archives, major motion picture studios, and technical service providers in Los Angeles and beyond.
Rare Books/Print and Visual Culture
This specialization provides a foundation in the history of literacy technologies, from early writing and manuscript culture through print and digital format, and addresses contemporary challenges for thinking about digital scholarship and special collections. It engages in active discussion of the ways legacy collections meet diversity initiatives in expanding horizons for scholarship and research. Drawing on archival science, bibliography, digital humanities, and librarianship, courses explore the professional and historical aspects of activities in rare books, print history, and visual resources, including ongoing scholarship about the nature of literacy, cataloging and metadata, intellectual property, the politics of publishing and distribution, and the creation and use of digital and digitized special collections.
The UCLA Department of Information Studies operates a dynamic and progressive internship program.
This program provides students enrolled in the MLIS or Ph.D. degree programs with a wide range of opportunities to apply their knowledge and skills in a structured professional environment under the supervision, guidance and mentoring of current practitioners in the information profession.
The internship program has been in place since the 1970s and has grown to include nearly 250 sites. Our Los Angeles location allows us to offer an exciting and diverse range of local internship sites. Our program is highly regarded among local organizations and companies.
Among those working with UCLA to offer internships to our students are:
- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
- The Getty
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
- Los Angeles Public Library Huntington Library
- Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC)
More than 20 internships are also available within UCLA, such as:
- Fowler Museum
- UCLA College Library
- UCLA Digital Collections Services
- UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive
- UCLA Film and Television Archive
- UCLA Special Collections
What Graduates Do
MLIS alumni go on to do amazing work in their fields. This information is designed to provide an introduction to the diverse research interests of MLIS scholars.
Contact Us
Chair, Department of Information Studies
Rob Montoya
montoya@seis.ucla.edu
Administrative Manager
Ryan Lebre
lebre@gseis.ucla.edu
(310) 983-3206
Student Affairs Officer
Amy Gershon
gershon@gseis.ucla.edu
(310) 825-8326