Joint Program in Bookstudies

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Joint Master's Degree and Graduate Certificate in Book Studies

Special collections librarians manage rare book, manuscript, archive and other types of special collections, including graphics, music and ephemera. Students interested special collections, book arts or museum librarianship may pursue a joint master’s degree in Library and Information Science (LIS) and graduate certificate in Book Studies. This option may also be of interest to LIS students interested in book studies scholarship, and to those seeking careers in publishing, graphic arts or book-related industries, that require a similar blend of subject and technical knowledge.

For information about the range of collections at the University of Iowa, see:
The University of Iowa Collections Coalition (UICC):
http://www.uiowa.edu/~collect/

For more information about careers in special collections see:
Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries Division (ACRL) of the American Library Association (ALA).
http://www.rbms.nd.edu/about/index.shtml

Association of Research Libraries Special Collections Program
http://www.arl.org/collect/spcoll/principles.html

Society of American Archivists http://www.archivists.org

For more information about scholarship in book studies, see:
The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) http://www.sharpweb.org

Requirements

To enroll in the joint program, students must be admitted to the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) and to the Center for the Book (UICB), and must fulfill the basic requirements of each program (including 27 semester hours in LIS and 15 semester hours in Book Studies).

If taken separately, these two programs require a total of sixty semester hours (36 for SLIS MA , and 24 for the Book Studies certificate). But for students enrolled in the joint program, up to nine semester hours of study may be applied toward the M.A. in LIS or to the Book Studies Certificate. Students must take at least 27 credits in LIS and 15 credits in Book Studies, as part of the total 51 credits required for the joint program. The remaining nine credits may be taken from either LIS or Book Studies.

For more information about requirements for each program, see the SLIS web page:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~libsci/programs.html#ma
and the UICB web page:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~ctrbook/Center_Programs/Requirements_Courses.html

In addition to obtaining the MA in Library and Information Science and the Graduate Certificate in Book Studies, graduates of the program may also further qualify for specific professional certification in such fields as archives administration and preservation. See the Academy of Certified Archivists web page at http://www.certifiedarchivists.org

For further information about the Joint Master's Degree and Graduate Certificate in Book Studies, contact jane-bradbury@uowa.edu


UI Conservator Gary Frost at work on a wooden boarded binding model in the UI Conservation Lab	Karen Mason, Curator, The University of Iowa Women's Archives

An Article from FYI: Byting the Past: Preserving Old Pages with New Technology