About the WILIS Project

Background

Workforce Issues in Library and Information Science (WILIS) project is designed to study the career patterns of graduates of LIS programs. In general, LIS programs have lacked the time and resources to track their graduates. As a result, stakeholders do not have an adequate understanding of what happens to LIS graduates over the long term. LIS educators, in particular, do not have consistent data on the extent to which their programs meet students’ expectations, prepare them for the workplace or meet continuing learning needs. Such an understanding would assist in educating and managing the LIS workforce more effectively.

WILIS is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Research Design

WILIS has two major parts. WILIS 1 is a three-year study (2005-2008) designed to build an in-depth understanding of educational, workplace, career and retention issues faced by LIS graduates using the life course perspective from the social sciences. This part of the research focuses on North Carolina where a full range of LIS program types exist. One of the programs is in a historically Black institution, allowing a focus on minority career and retention issues. The project has developed a comprehensive web-based survey to collect data on the long term career patterns of those who graduated from LIS programs in North Carolina between 1964 and 2007.

WILIS 2 is a three year project (2007-2010), building on WILIS 1, to create an alumni tracking system that all LIS master’s programs can potentially use. Using a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach, the study will refine the WILIS 1 career tracking model so that it is suitable for all LIS programs to use with their recent graduates. The career tracking system will be tested with up to 33 LIS programs.

Project Documents

 

© 2005, UNC Institute on Aging
WILIS is a partnership of the UNC School of Information and Library Science and the UNC Institute on Aging.