Bragging rights for having the best library-science program in the United States and Canada — if a market-research-firm survey limited to 75 universities confers bragging rights — belongs to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Illinois’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science got the most votes in Research and Markets’ annual survey of academic libraries. The company, which is based in Ireland, asked survey participants to list the top five academic library-science programs in North America, on the basis of scholarly output and effectiveness in preparing professional librarians for practice.
After the Illinois school, the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill tied for second place.
In addition to the reputation of teaching programs, the survey asked some questions about libraries themselves. How much do libraries spend to get online access to books, journals, and other content? The libraries in the survey averaged $456,238. Major research universities spent a lot more, however. They averaged nearly $3.5-million.—Josh Fischman
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