teaching areas

evaluation of information services

technology for information professionals

knowledge management

LIS 488 Technology for Information Professionals

Technology Tutorials and Web Portfolios

If you want to learn various pieces of technology, see Technology tutorials created by prior students of the course. Clicking on the name of the student will take you to the student’s web portfolio.

Books on the subject

About the course

The unrelenting need for information, and its increasingly electronic nature, has produced major competitors and alternatives to traditional library services. Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals need to be able to evaluate technological developments objectively and critically, as well as adopt, use, configure and sometimes create software solutions.

Yet, LIS students have varying levels of comfort with technology. Continuing technological developments mean that any amount of prior knowledge is insufficient.

This survey course provides the conceptual foundation and context of computing, Internet and related technologies as used in information-intensive professions. The course provides an overview of topics such as how computers work (hardware, software, history of IT); networking; internet, related technologies and the future of WWW; content management systems; RDBMS and XML; ethics; security; information search and retrieval; the impact and implications of technological change on libraries, archives and other information centers; technology today and tomorrow; and other related topics. Along with providing the general technology foundation needed before taking other technology courses offered at GSLIS, this course also introduces some of these other courses.

With an emphasis both on concepts (along with an emphasis on terminology that appears in the professional literature) and skills (interactive demos and/or hands-on sessions and web design and development), the course will help students be confident in trying out and learning new pieces of technology and be aware of recent technological developments. Students will also understand the use of technology and the real-world technical and management issues of IT in the current LIS context.