Unprecedented change in the use of information is reshaping our personal activities, our community and organizational practices, and our national and global institutions. In managing these transformations, our society too often focuses narrowly either on extending technology or on revising social policies. We need an integrated understanding of human needs and their relationships to information systems and social structures. We need unifying principles that illuminate the role of information in both computation and cognition, in both communication and community. We need information professionals who can apply these principles to synthesize human-centered and technological perspectives. The University of Michigan School of Information is pioneering the development and application of these principles and is educating professionals to lead in the information age.
A New School
The School of Information was rechartered by the Board of Regents in 1996. It is creating a new class of professionals qualified to address these complex challenges. The School inherits the rich traditions of service, leadership, research, and access from the School of Information and Library Studies, and extends these values into the digital age. Students and faculty with a broad range of perspectives and interests are forging a new body of theory, principles, and practices from the best of past and present scholarship in library and information science, computer science, the humanities, and the social sciences.
Generating New Knowledge
The School of Information is dedicated to investigating the fundamental role of information in society. Its field of study is information: how it is created, identified, collected, structured, managed, preserved, accessed, processed, and presented; how it is used in different environments, with different technologies, and over time. Faculty and students conduct multidisciplinary research to discover new knowledge about the interplay between information, technology, and people with the aim of unifying human-centered design approaches and sophisticated technologies.
Delivering Quality Professional Education
The School is devoted to delivering the highest quality professional education to students who seek careers as librarians, information service providers, human-computer interface specialists, information system developers, archivists, information economists, and information administrators in both traditional and new settings. Yet the pace of change in both social organizations and information technology is such that the School must also provide life-long learning opportunities to established information professionals and prepare students to pioneer career paths that do not now exist. Richly intertwined programs of instruction, research, and community engagement expose our students to innovative ideas, novel approaches, and the potential of new technologies.
Educating New Scholars
The School's doctoral students form a new cohort of scholars prepared to conduct distinguished research and innovative teaching. They are ready to assume roles as university faculty, administrators, technical innovators, and research scientists who can define the principles of the field, lead organizations, and design the next generation of information systems and technologies.
Building Partnerships to Solve Fundamental Problems
Because the School stresses the interaction between technical possibilities and the distinctive contexts in which information is actually used, it values partnerships with other parts of the University and with external organizations. The research and instructional programs at the School have a strong component of practical engagement with private enterprises, not-for-profit institutions, libraries, schools, and communities to address the pressing social and technological problems of information management, access, and use. The School integrates this larger community tightly into its instruction -- via an innovative practical engagement program -- and into its research -- via partnerships in developing concepts and technologies that enrich both the practice and theory of the information professions.
Realizing a Vision
Information professionals are playing an increasingly vital role in empowering individuals, communities, and organizations to capture the promise of the information age. The School of Information embraces a vision that harmonizes people, information systems, and organizations to improve the quality of life. Our mission is to discover the principles and concepts that will enable society to realize this vision, to design the technologies, systems, and practices that will substantiate the vision, and to educate new generations of professionals who will put that vision into practice.
Last updated: Mar 31, 2006 Home > About SI > Our Mission
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