Susie and anyone else interested in this topic,

I feel compelled to respond in my role as Education Chair.

The world of geospatial technology education is large.
NSF funded Geotech Center does there best to keep track of the over 400 GIS programs.
http://www.geotechcenter.org/

The Geotech list is not comprehensive. Several iSchools offer courses that teach students how to use geographic information systems (GIS). http://ischools.org/ I know this because I have organized 3 Spatial Information Science workshops at the last 3 iConferences, which focus on research and not instruction. The iSchool courses taught by my colleagues resemble those taught in any number of geospatial technology programs in Geography and other GIS-related fields. The skills students learn are related to spatial analysis.

In response to this dearth of coursework in the area of Geographic Information Librarianship was noted in Kathy Weimer and Pete Reehling's 2006 article and they included a program proposal.

  *   Weimer, Katherine H. and Pete Reehling.  “A New Model of Geographic Information Librarianship: Description, Curriculum and Program Proposal”.  Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 47(4) Fall 2006:291-302.

In 2008, the round table built on this effort and in response to a charge from the ALA Core Competency Task Force to define each round tables and divisions core competencies, MAGIRT's Education Committee worked together to create our own document to among other things steer education in this area titled  Map, GIS and Cataloging/Metadata Librarian Core Competencies <http://www.ala.org/ala/educationcareers/careers/corecomp/corecompspecial/magertcorecomp2008.pdf> and found in our list of publications http://www.ala.org/magirt/publications).

Then, in 2012 the third time was the charm when the Geographic Information Librarianship (GIL) project, a two-year curricular research collaboration began between the University of Tennessee and Drexel University through the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grant via the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in their "Programs to Build Institutional Capacity" category. The two courses developed unlike other GIS courses do focus on knowledge, skills, and abilities outlined in the MAGIRT CC's.

Only after receiving a federal grant could programs justify taking the risk on such electives as a certain number of students is required for course to be offered without a loss. The GIL courses were offered as special topics in 2013-14 at Drexel and UT-Knoxville. The process of becoming an actual course took longer. As addition into a university catalog requires a diplomatic strategy to get a course approval at the School, College, and University levels with intense vetting from faculty often outside the field and with competing interest in these types of interdisciplinary courses. This was accomplished in the past year at the University of Tennessee with strong support from tenured faculty in my unit.

Several articles are forthcoming in 2015 that provide more details to the IMLS Geographic Information Librarianship project. UT now has 3 online classes about geographic information. For now there is more information here:
http://scholar.cci.utk.edu/gil/home

Thank you,
Wade

[https://scholar.cci.utk.edu/sites/default/files/styles/os_files_medium/public/gil/files/imls.png?itok=eGkByfGO]
________________________________
From: Maps-L: Discussion Forum for Maps, Air Photo, Map Librarianship, GIS, etc. [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Susie Aber [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2014 12:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Need help - Map/Geospatial Librarianship Programs & Courses

The world of map librarians seems to be relatively small and as a career specialization, a young field given that the first course in a LIS program in the US (world?) was 1950.  I am researching this and decided to ask this incredible group of MAPS-L followers and contributors two questions.  Please send replies directly to me (Susie Aber, [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>), and I will summarize and post the results for all to see – Thanks so much in advance!

1. Which LIS schools offer a dual/joint/double graduate degree program for LIS and geography/map/geospatial librarianship?

2. Which LIS schools offer courses specific to map/geospatial librarianship?

By LIS programs & schools, I also mean to include SLIS, SIRLS, SI, ischool, GSEIS, MLIS, GSLIS, SLIM, SIS, SISLT, SCI, SCILS, CCI, SILS, LSD, EGCTI, LSC, MCIS, SOIS, SLAIS, SIM, EBSI...