UA News

The UA's digital information management certificate program is graduating its first cohort, a group of librarians and archivists working in institutions across the country.

The first cohort of students admitted to a University of Arizona program that is training the new generation of tech-savvy librarians is graduating.

More than one dozen students in the UA School of Information Resources and Library Science's digital information management, or "DigIn," graduate certificate program completed their coursework this month.

Peter Botticelli, an assistant professor of practice for the school, also known as SIRLS, noted that while three students from the first cohort graduated early, this is the first class to graduate with the certificate.

"We have way more students than the numbers we originally projected," Botticelli said. Initially, the program expected to admit 90 students over a three-year period.

Meanwhile, the program has seen a peak in demand – admitting 80 new students this year, up from about 55 students admitted last year.

Earlier this year, SIRLS received a grant of more than $910,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to aid in boosting enrollments in the certificate program while also targeting a more diverse population of librarians and archivists.

The high-demand program trains library professionals to create, collect, manage and preserve digital information, with students holding jobs in tandem with their studies. Many students are working in small, rural communities and also are students of color. 

"Anyone in libraries today is very concerned with digital collections. That's really percolating through the profession now," Botticelli said.

While academic libraries have spent the last 10 years infusing their collection with digital content and information management techniques, others within the library arena have recently begun doing the same.

This feeds into the need to upgrade talents and skills – another reason why the enrollment numbers are growing, he added.

"People who have been working out in the profession 10 to 20 years in a more traditional area are definitely looking at needing to update their skills and to make themselves more marketable, particularly in an era of budget cuts," Botticelli said.

The DigIn graduating class includes archivists and librarians and professionals working in Washington, D.C., in libraries in Virginia and for the Metropolitan New York Library Council, among numerous other locations. 

Felicia Lujan, a DigIn student from New Mexico, said she was initially interested in the program after legislation surfaced in 2007 in her state that – if it had passed – would have provided funding for a Web-based certificate program for professionals in her field.

Though the legislation did not pass, Lujan said she still wanted to further develop her skills.

"Not many people seem to know about the program," said Lujan, a senior archivist for the New Mexico State Archives who manages digital collections. 

Lujan said metadata librarians and digital repository managers are very necessary positions and that agencies must fund professionals who know how to adequately manage records.

Her agency alone draws social scientists, geologists, priests, lawyers, historians, graduate students and others who are conducting research or simply seeking out information. 

"Time is of the essence, and we need to take the time to give quality management and quality process to permanent records," Lujan said.

George Diez, a DigIn graduate and librarian currently working in Washington D.C., has been working for libraries since the mid-1990s and said the recent technology evolution hitting his industry has become especially obvious in recent years. 

"One of the major changes is that libraries used to manage collections of information that were located inside a physical building," Diez said. 

"Now, libraries manage arrangements by which information is accessed remotely," he added. 

DigIn provides its students with a broad range of information related to the new realm of the library and information management professions, such as ways to configure databases, how to manage electronic collections, how to digitize collections and so on.

"I think the program really excelled at providing an overview and how there is variety by library setting and disciplines," Diez said. "The program did very well to touch upon the major issues and introduced me to some practical or applied technology applications."

For his capstone project as part of the program, Diez evaluated the ways electronic information influences scientific research. He completed the report on behalf of the Library of Congress.

"I'd say that, generally, we're all transforming into an information-centered society," Diez said. "Much of what's behind this are collections of information. So it's interesting to get some insight into how the infrastructure that supports the means by which we find our information is developed."