As a current MLIS student (and MAPS-L lurker) in San José State University's iSchool, I'll offer some reflections on this interesting question. 

In 2019, I took Dr. Aber's San José State class mentioned by Angela in this thread. I found it to be engaging. It was offered as both a 2- and 3-unit class, and I chose the "smaller" version. There were only 7 students in the class.
  • Dr. Aber seemed to focus on the "geoliteracy" aspect of map librarianship, which resonated with me because I work in elementary education and am pursuing a school librarian credential. She gave us quite a few opportunities to become more geo-aware ourselves in a gamified format.
  • As part of that curriculum, students visited a map librarian. Dr. Susan Powell at UC Berkeley's Earth Sciences Library graciously allowed me to interview her. If I recall correctly, she emphasized the need for a geospatial librarian to have a background in an academic or practical field that uses GIS. 
  • I talked to a San José State academic advisor about pursuing map librarianship as a career, and she emphasized taking a government documents library course. She also conveyed that map librarianship would be an academic track, which left me wondering whether that truly is the only option. How about map librarianship as a career in government
  • I think it would be useful to integrate the use of ESRI or QGIS in a library school course. It's something I missed with Dr. Aber's class, which is understandable since there are so many geospatial topics to cover! But I'm probably going to have to take GIS courses at my local community college, teach myself, or get practical experience somewhere through a paid position or internship.
  • Geospatial metadata as a topic could be useful for such a course. I did research about this for a Special Topics: Metadata course in our iSchool. When I look at geospatial librarian-related job descriptions these days, metadata seems highly relevant.
Please feel free to contact me if you want further insight from a student perspective! 
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Tobias Bodine
Teacher-Librarian Credential and 
Masters of Library & Information Sciences Candidate,
San Jose State University iSchool
Born on Tamcan/Cholvon land, raised on xučyun (Huichin) land, living on Saclan land
"In the beginner's mind, all things are possible" -- Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
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On Tue, Dec 7, 2021 at 6:41 AM Angela R Cope <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
A few syllabi I found ... 

Map librarian syllabus SJSU 

Digital map librarianship: a working syllabus, for the IFLA Section of Geography and Map Libraries.

Institute on Map Collections (Knutzen; Spring 2015)
https://palmerblog.liu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/901-Maps-Institute-Knutzen-Spring-2015.pdf


From: Maps-L: Map Librarians, etc. <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Quill, Theresa Marguerite <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, December 6, 2021 9:17 AM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Map Librarianship Course Planning

Hi all!

I’m in the process of developing a course on Map/GIS Librarianship for the Department of Library and Information Science at Indiana University.  I’m really starting from scratch, so would appreciate any input. What do you wish you learned in library school? Has anyone taught a similar course and would be willing to share resources? I’m imagining some combination of spatial humanities, map care & collecting, critical cartography, map types/reading, and a little bit of cartographic history, etc.

Thanks in advance! Feel free to reply to me directly if you prefer.

Theresa

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Theresa Quill (she/her/hers)

Map and Spatial Data Librarian

Liaison to Department of Geography

Associate Librarian

Herman B Wells Library, E241C

Indiana University Bloomington

[log in to unmask]

Schedule a virtual appointment with Theresa

 



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