Back to Columbia In 1926, the School of Library Service was created as a professional school at what is now
Columbia University, with the new entity incorporating not just the New York State Library School in Albany but also
the training school run by the
New York Public Library. Funding for the school came via a grant from the
Carnegie Corporation of New York. a position which would subsequently become known as the dean of the school (the same person was often also the director of
Columbia University Libraries).
Expanded quarters By the early 1930s, the Columbia school was one of the five major library schools in the United States, with the others being the
University of Chicago Graduate Library School, the
University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science, the
University of Michigan School of Library Science, and the
University of California, Berkeley School of Librarianship. Then in 1934–35, when
South Hall, later to be known as Butler Library, opened, the school moved into it. The added space was a great improvement, Around the same time, the school's curriculum was revised to allow more advanced study for those who already had knowledge in specific areas. The library school reached its peak enrollment figure during the 1938–39 academic year, with 1,071 students.
Revised degree programs The programs at the school leading to degrees were revised in 1948: Heretofore most degrees awarded had been that of an additional, "fifth-year" bachelor's degree, with a few going on to get a master's degree; both of those were dropped and were replaced by a new master's degree representing one full year of post-bachelor's work. Overall, throughout its history, the School of Library Service saw 166 doctoral degrees awarded. He was followed by Jack Dalton, who was dean of the school from 1959 to 1970. By 1961, enrollment in the school was 365 students.
Regular and special programs By the early 1970s, the school offered around 60 different courses. When done full-time, the requirements for the
Master of Library Science degree was met by two academic semesters as well as a summer session. Students could enter the program at the start of any of the fall, spring, or summer terms. she taught a number of courses and was a recognized authority on children's libraries and school library services.
Maurice Tauber was a professor at the school for 32 years, and became renowned in the subjects of cataloging, classification, and similar processes. During his time at Columbia,
Theodore C. Hines wrote extensively on the use of computer-based indexing for
library catalogs. The School of Library Service had space on the fifth and sixth floors of Butler Library. This included the Book Arts Press, a bibliographical laboratory for various studies concerned with the history of books and printing, descriptive bibliography, the antiquarian book trade, and rare book and special collections librarianship. Belanger's activities would stimulate the development of rare book librarianship as a profession. The School of Library Service had the only program in the world for preserving paper. to around 250 students. Darling announced his retirement in 1984, and in 1985,
Robert Wedgeworth became dean of the school. Wedgeworth led a drive to modernize the school's approach to technology and information services. The university as a whole was under substantial financial and budgetary pressure. Butler Library was intended to undergo renovation and expansion, and there was no room for the library school in those plans. In June 1990, Columbia announced that it had gone ahead with its decision and that the School of Library Service would be closing, in a phasing out that would take place over two years in order to allow existing students to complete their degrees. In the announcement, university provost
Jonathan R. Cole said that the school was "valuable but not vital" and that keeping it could "come only at the cost of sacrificing greater priorities." The university remained in poor financial shape as the library school was disassembled, with eventually Columbia's president
Michael I. Sovern stepping down. Following the completion of the 1991–92 academic year, the School of Library Service officially closed on June 30, 1992. Columbia looked to see if the library school could be moved to another university. Two programs within the school were moved independently of the fate of it as a whole. The Conservation Education Program was moved to the
University of Texas at Austin, where it lasted until 2009. In 2002, Columbia University Libraries undertook a project to save and digitize the School of Library Service's old library collection, which was said to be "the strongest historical collection in the world for materials relating to libraries and librarianship." == See also ==