Library and Information Science Department

About the LIS Department: the iSchool at Rutgers

The Department of Library and Information Science has a distinguished record of research, education and community outreach that spans many decades. It is a founding member of the iSchools consortium and our programs are recognized by Rutgers University through its national rankings as some of its best.

The department is characterized by a research and learning culture that is inclusive, diverse and cohesive, international in scope and local in impact.

Vision

Enhancing human experience and quality of life in a dynamic information world, our goal is to pursue pre-eminence and leadership through boundary-breaking research and innovative professional and academic programs.

Mission

As scholars and educators in the Department of Library and Information Science, we believe that information makes a profound difference in the lives of people, communities and organizations.

We undertake boundary-breaking research that seeks to understand and enhance people's lives by enabling and supporting their interactions with information in whatever contexts and forms that may happen.

We educate future-ready professionals in diverse information service and technology contexts. They are prepared to design, manage and evaluate systems and services that support people and communities' interactions with information, and they play a leading role in enabling people to create, use, and preserve knowledge. They are people-centered in their work, critical and reflective thinkers, creative problem solvers, and effective communicators.

Focus

People And Community

We focus on the information needs of people in diverse social, organizational, and cultural contexts and on opportunities to design responsive information places, services, networks, and systems. 

Data, Information And Knowledge

We focus on the dynamic intersection of data, information, and their creation, organization, use, and preservation for posterity to provide meaningful and adaptive services to individuals, information organizations, and communities. 

Technologies, Systems And Networks

We focus on designing, implementing, and evaluating information systems and services that enable access to information and learning how to optimize their usefulness in meetings organizational and community goals. 

Empowerment, Engagement And Action

We focus on scholarly and professional leadership and the capacity to safeguard and make available the cultural, intellectual, and technological records of humankind. We understand the value of data, information, and knowledge in shaping human capacity to be productive, creative, and transformative. 

Library and Information Science Programs

Information Technology and Informatics major

Master of Information (MI), with concentrations in Library and Information Science; School Librarianship; Data Science: Informatics and Design Technology, Information and Management; and Archives and Preservation.*ALA-accredited* 

The MI program is ranked #6 nationally by U.S. News & World Reports. (2022 ranking) Library and Information Studies #2 in School Library Media; #3 in Library Services for Children and Youth; #6 in Digital Librarianship; #10 in Library Information Systems

BA (ITI Major)-MI Dual Degree Pathway

Ph.D. Program, Library and Information Science area of concentration

Academic Partnerships

A Distinguished Faculty

To learn more about the faculty in the LIS department, visit the LIS Directory page.

Our faculty are scholars and educators with prominent national and international standing, recipients of distinguished scholarly and professional awards, and recipients of research funding from National Science Foundation, DARPA, ARDA, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, as well as numerous foundations, corporations and library and information science organizations, Google, and OCLC.

Our faculty publish in top-tier journals and proceedings as well as serve on their editorial boards, such as Information Processing and Management, Information Retrieval, Interaction with Computers, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Journal of Documentation, Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, Library Quarterly, and Journal of Learning, Media & Technology.

LIS Research

The research and scholarship of our international faculty draw on rich and diverse theoretical foundations and methodological traditions and contributes to new understandings, contemporary theory development, new methodological approaches, and innovative professional applications.

We actively pursue these studies in the context of diversity and social justice. We value the role of libraries and information organizations in promoting lifelong learning, participatory citizenship, and the public good. Connecting these research foci are common threads that define our scholarly contribution and distinguish our department as an iSchool.

Supported Research Centers, Clusters, Working Groups, and Labs

Behavioral Informatics Lab 

The Behavioral Informatics Lab looks at multiple problems at the intersection of Big Data Analytics, Computational Social Science, and Multimedia Information Systems. The field of Behavioral Informatics focuses on sensing, understanding, and shaping human behavior in a data-driven manner. 

 Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries

The Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL) is dedicated to research, scholarship, education, and consultancy for school library professionals. It focuses on how learning in an information age school is enabled and demonstrated by school library programs, and how inquiry-based learning and teaching processes can contribute to educational success and workplace readiness for learners.

Community Design for Health and Wellness

Through Community Design for Health and Wellness, the CDHW-IRG seeks to catalyze community-engaged, interdisciplinary, cross-campus research that creates solutions to the gaps, risks, and opportunities for health and wellness that lie at the intersections of population health, personalized medicine, and the evolving communication and information context in New Jersey and beyond.

Laboratory for the Study of Applied Language Technology and Society

SALTS, the Laboratory for the Study of Applied Language Technology and Society at the School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University, brings together researchers interested in developing and/or using next-generation natural language processing technology that supports communication across cultural and social boundaries in areas such as digital libraries, education, public health, humanities, linguistics, and communication.

Power and Inequality in Media and Technology Working Group

Power and inequality in Media and Technology Working Group -The roots of systemic inequality have structured our contemporary world. Those with economic and political power have upheld these patterns of inequality as they shape mediated discourse and technological development. We see it today as information and communication technologies are framed as neutral, colorblind, meritocratic arbiters of ever-wider swathes of public and private life while placing certain populations at higher risk, blaming them for their vulnerability, and exonerating powerful entities from accountability. Examples abound—from the manufacture of widely-used technologies that exploit the labor of the global working class, and the unequal distribution of internet access and health disparities, to the ways the media covers racially-motivated violence and corporate surveillance. As such, this interdisciplinary group explores a broad variety of media and information technologies’ intersections with society, with the goal of promoting justice, equity, and sustainability, as well as expanding on the scholarship of this multifaceted and important topic at SC&I and the university.

Social Media & Society Cluster 

The Social Media & Society Cluster is a transdisciplinary unit within Rutgers School of Communication and Information that supports research that extends across the boundaries of the iSchool, communication, and media studies programs within the School. Consisting of faculty from the departments of Communication, Journalism and Media Studies, and Library and Information Science, our faculty offer an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program, as well as a Master of Communication and Information Studies and a Master of Information.

Health and Wellness Faculty Cluster 

The Health and Wellness Faculty Cluster brings together faculty across the school whose research, teaching, and service focus centrally on closing disparities and improving health and wellness outcomes for individual, groups, and communities in the U.S. and globally. Our work examines the evolving role that communication, information, and media play in facilitating personal and public health via a range of processes and mechanisms – health education and health literacy, risk communication, persuasion and social influence, social support, capacity-building, and informatics – and across a wide range of health challenges, including drug and alcohol addiction, cancer, HIV/AIDS, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, mental health, and wellness more generally. 

Department News

Predicting Loneliness Through Online Digital Footprints

By Greg Bruno, Rutgers University Office of Communications 

User data from Google, YouTube and other online platforms can be used to predict, prevent and even mitigate loneliness, potentially lowering the risk of suicide for at-risk individuals, according to a Rutgers study.

Rutgers to Celebrate International Children's Book Day on April 2

SC&I and Alexander Library will host an event at the library featuring readings and performances by Rutgers undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and guests, including a performance of the Japanese storytelling art of Kamishibai and a dance by the Rutgers undergraduate Chinese dance troupe.

How is Artificial Intelligence Impacting Higher Education?

Assistant Dean for Programs and Assessment Sharon Stoerger discusses educational uses of AI, how it is transforming student assessment, approaches educators are taking to prepare students for STEM careers, and ways institutions are embracing this new technology.