LIS FACULTY RESEARCH AND EXPECTATIONS OF THE ACADEMIC CULTURE VERSUS THE NEEDS OF THE PRACTITIONER

Library and information studies (LIS) education may be misreading the academic community's expectations. A program's viability may hinge on a counterintuitive premise, where the academic culture allows each dis cipline to create its own criteria for its own evaluation. LIS program s may have unwittingly assumed that adopting the scientific mode might gain them currency in the academic realm; yet there is little evidenc e that LIS programs had the prerequisite infrastructure to compete wit h a science discipline in terms of sustained funded research, teaching assistant and postdoctoral assistant services, laboratory equipment, and other resources. There is an irony that many LIS students and facu lty do not come from the scientific disciplines, and this further inhi bits their ability to compete in that arena. LIS program and faculty e valuators have used criteria from the sciences to measure LIS progress and to determine an individual's suitability for promotion. We conten d that this application of inappropriate criteria has done unnecessary harm to LIS and the individuals in it. An examination of selected COA self-study responses and other sources indicates that LIS may misread the academic culture because LIS does not appear to be central to uni versity governance. Finally, the waning of LIS's affiliation with libr aries may do LIS irreparable harm. LIS's focus may need to be recenter ed on educating librarians.