The iSchools
Ronald L. Larsen, Dean
School of Information Sciences
University of Pittsburgh
Dedicated to the memory of Raymond von Dran
Dean of the School of Information Studies
Syracuse University, 1995‐2007

Abstract
Information Schools (“iSchools”) address the relationship between information, technology,
and people. This is characterized by a commitment to learning and understanding the role ofinformation in human endeavors. The iSchools take it as given that expertise in all forms of
information is required for progress in science, business, education, and culture. This expertisemust include understanding of the uses and users of information, as well as information
technologies and their applications.
As of 2008, twenty‐one iSchools in the U.S. and Canada have joined the “iCaucus”, a forum inwhich iSchools’ deans collaborate to further their collective interests through focused events
such as the “iConference” and resources of broader interest such as the iSchools web site.

Keywords: information school, information science, library science, education,
Interdisciplinarity, information technology, informatics, information studies

Origins
In 1988, Toni Carbo, dean of the School of Library and Information Sciences (now the School ofInformation Sciences) at the University of Pittsburgh, formed the “Gang of Three,” including her
decanal colleagues at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies (Donald Marchand)and Drexel University’s College of Information Science and Technology (Richard Lytle). Within
the next couple of years, the dean of the School of Communication, Information, and Library
Studies at Rutgers University (Richard Budd) joined the group, making it a “Gang of Four.” The
Gang grew out of informal conversations at a meeting of the Association for Library andInformation Science Education (ALISE). Each of the schools offered graduate Library &Information Science (LIS) and a variety of "other" programs, including undergraduate
information science, telecommunications, journalism, etc. The objective was to share
information and to foster development of a community of colleagues addressing such questionsas "How do you explain information science (IS) to your provost?" The Gang met informally
into the mid‐1990s.

In 2001, the group was reconstituted under Toni’s leadership at a meeting in Pittsburgh.
Participants included deans from Syracuse University (Raymond von Dran), Drexel University(David Fenske), the University of Washington’s Information School (Michael Eisenberg), and the
University of Michigan’s School of Information (John King). With that meeting, the “Gang ofFive” was formed.
Beginning in 2003, Gang membership grew with the addition of deans from the Graduate
School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, the School of Informationand Library Science at the University of North Carolina, the College of Information at Florida
State University, the School of Informatics at Indiana University, and the School of Information
at the University of Texas, bringing it to the “Gang of Ten.” By this point, the informal name was
becoming unwieldy and a bit inappropriate, particularly as continued growth was anticipated.
Through the leadership of deans John King, the late Raymond von Dran, and Michael Eisenberg,
the group’s agenda became more focused on building a sense of identity and community
among the “information schools,” or “iSchools.”
Typically, the group met twice per year. Meetings, hosted by one of the deans, included private
discussions among the deans as well as open conversations with faculty of the host school, andusually an informal reception or lunch. During the deans‐only sessions, the agenda focused onchallenging administrative, programmatic, and planning issues, in addition to the continuinginterest in explaining IS better to our non‐IS colleagues. The sessions also provided an
opportunity to learn about the curriculum and research of each school. An early goal was tonurture the development of a critical mass of faculty across the schools to undertake
collaborative research.
The group was formally named “the iSchools Caucus” (more casually referred to as theiCaucus), and its membership grew rapidly with the addition of:•

The School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies
Rutgers University (rejoining)•

The School of Information
University of California, Berkeley•

The Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
University of California, Irvine•

The Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
University of California, Los Angeles•

The College of Information Sciences and Technology
Pennsylvania State University

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•

The College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology•

The School of Library and Information Science
Indiana University•

The College of Information Studies
University of Maryland•

The Faculty of Information
University of Toronto

And in 2008, two more institutions joined:•

The Heinz School
Carnegie Mellon University•

The School of Information Systems
Singapore Management University

As a board member of the Computing Research Association (CRA), King introduced the iSchools
Caucus to the CRA IT Deans Group, founded in 2000 at the Snowbird meeting and chaired byPeter Freeman (Georgia Tech). In 2008, the name of the CRA group was shortened withmajority approval to the “CRA Deans” group. The CRA Deans group provides a broad forum forleaders of IT schools, colleges, and institutes to share experiences, strategies, opportunities,
and concerns. It illuminates issues and seeks common ground leading to a coherent and unified
voice for the academic and research communities, and to the general public. A substantial
majority of the iSchool deans have joined the CRA Deans group in order to assure that
information‐related issues are appropriately reflected in the group’s evolving agenda.

Motivation
The emergence and evolution of iSchools was triggered by the explosive growth in digital
information. In a 2003 study1, Peter Lyman and Hal Varian estimated that about 5 exabytes(5x1018) of new information was generated in 2002 worldwide, with a growth rate of about 30%
per year. They note that 5 exabytes “is equivalent in size to the information contained in
37,000 new libraries the size of the Library of Congress book collections.” A 2007 study by IDC2
concluded that the worldwide production of information in 2006 exceeded 161 exabytes,
increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 57%. While only a small fraction of thisinformation is accessible online (<2% by some estimates), it still represents an enormous andincreasing amount of information that presents major challenges (and opportunities) in
information management, access, and preservation.

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Marcia Bates defines “the domain of information science [as] the universe of recorded
information that is selected and retained for later access,” and posits that applied information
science is “primarily concerned with the form and organization of information, its underlying
structure, and only secondarily with its content.”3 Add to this the study of human use of
information and the design and development of the technological tools to utilize information,
and an understanding of the domain of the iSchools emerges. Bates succinctly states thesethrough three driving questions:•••

What are the features and laws of the recorded‐information universe? (physicalquestion)
How do people relate to, seek, and use information? (social question)
How can access to recorded information be made most rapid and effective? (design
question)“The iSchools are interested in the relationship between information, technology, and people.
This is characterized by a commitment to learning and understanding the role of information inhuman endeavors. The iSchools take it as given that expertise in all forms of information isrequired for progress in science, business, education, and culture. This expertise must include
understanding of the uses and users of information, as well as information technologies andtheir applications.” (From the iSchools web site www.ischools.org, 2008.)

Positioning
The “identity debate” has a long tradition in information studies and it influenced the formationof the iSchools as a group. It takes on many forms and has multiple dimensions. Wanda
Orlikowski and Suzanne Iacono4 argued for a theoretical focus on IT artifacts and laid out five
relevant conceptualizations:• Tool view (e.g., a productivity enhancer);• Proxy view (e.g., surrogate measures such as return on investment);• Ensemble view (e.g., technology embedded in a socio‐economic system);• Computational view (e.g., models and algorithms); and• Nominal view (e.g., studies of broad impacts such as outsourcing).
Ron Weber5 posited, “the identity of a discipline is established through the contributions it
makes to theory.” He went on to suggest that he could find “only one class of phenomena forwhich theories sourced from other disciplines seemed deficient – namely, phenomena
associated with building conceptual models and designing databases.”
Another facet of the identity discussion has been the attempt to draw boundaries. Izak
Benbasat and Robert Zmud6 summarized some of this line of thought as placing claim on threenecessary and sufficient criteria: a central character, distinctiveness, and temporal continuity.
They argued that a dominant design for the information systems discipline “has yet to berealized” and that this hinders the field’s legitimacy. They affirmed the centrality of the IT4artifact, placing the notion in a broad context including understanding capabilities andpractices, human behaviors, usage, and impacts.
Robert Galliers7 pushed back on Benbasat and Zmud, arguing that boundaries and disciplinarycores emerge naturally as a field evolves. In IS, forces shaping this evolution include such topics
as the digital divide, globalization, and IT in the developing world, resulting in a broadening of
the locus of study to include societal, policy, and ethical issues. He suggested adopting a “trans‐
disciplinary” perspective on the field of IS. The following table adapts Galliers’ characterization
for IS to the domain of the iSchools.

Boundary
Central Artifact
Focus
Scope
Reference Disciplines
Properties
Inter‐disciplinary

Disciplinarity
Organization
IT
InwardNarrow
Org‐Behavior, CS, etc.
DefinedA threat

Trans‐disciplinarity
Society
People/Information
OutwardBroad
IS, LIS, Telecommunications
Emergent
An opportunity

Gerardine DeSanctis8 reflected on the increasing pervasiveness of information technology,
observing that “knowledge and creative use are no longer the sole domain of specialists.” Thishas shifted the dominant functional role of information professionals from development toleadership and support, and put many in strategic business positions. As information
professionals take on these new roles, technical skills must be supplemented with newcompetencies in human relations and organizational effectiveness. As DeSanctis observed, “theinstitutional paradox for IS is that the domain has become of interest to many faculty groups
yet the sole purview of none.” While, perhaps, not the sole purview, this is, most certainly, theprimary purview of the iSchools. Rather than focusing on a bounded “domain,” DeSanctis
argued for a “focus on the questions” and observed that these have historically generated
excitement and impact in IS.
Daniel Robey9 continued the call for a “more flexible identity for IS” that avoids “the lure of adominant research paradigm.” He suggested a pursuit of “pragmatic legitimacy” that casts IS asa “valued partner in intellectual exchanges with our external constituents: the governing
bodies, business executives, university officials, and scholars from other disciplines who are the
key actors in IS’s organizational field.”John King and Kalle Lyytinen10 acknowledged that the IS field lacks a theoretic core and has
been “haunted by feelings of inadequacy” for 30 years. They proposed an alternative model forestablishing legitimacy, grounded in three drivers:••

Salience of issues studied;
Production of strong results; and5

•

Maintenance of plasticity.

They offered an alternative view of the core of the discipline as a “market of ideas” where theIS field is defined as “the study of the design and management of information and associatedtechnologies in organized human enterprise.” Rather than accepting the argument that theory
should provide the foundation, they suggest, rather, that theory “to the extent that it has arole, is in the service of producing strong results.”
King11 sums up this discussion of identity, observing that iSchools “straddle the academy’s
ancient engagement with information and the contemporary challenges of ubiquitous
information affecting all aspects of society. … The [iSchool] movement is emergent; its
equilibrium can only be found in an essential tension among competing visions in a world of
rapid technical and social change. [iSchool] identity is elusive and will remain so for theforeseeable future.”

Empowerment
Studying at an iSchool immerses students in this dynamic and emerging “iField,” where they
confront the issues, opportunities, and challenges of an information society in the 21st century,in all their richness, controversy, and ambiguity. The iField addresses the fundamental issue of
harnessing the incredible flow of information for the betterment of humanity.
The iField also empowers people in other fields to create, find, store, manipulate, and share
information in useful forms. It may be unique in that, despite its elusive core, its subject,
information, is at the heart of what individuals, organizations, and societies need in order toadvance human endeavors, from acting to zoology. The iField’s most visible and viable outcome
is the delivery of the right information at the right time to the right people in the right form.

Organization
The iSchools were founded as a consortium to establish broad recognition of the iField and its
importance to society. In this role, they sought to position a group of academic institutions to
identify, clarify, and speak to the major issues, challenges, and driving questions at the nexus of
information, technology, and society. While a relatively small number of universities took thelead in establishing an organization with this goal, those who share the goal and contribute toits achievement go far beyond the small collection of organizers. The defining characteristics ofiSchools (whether iCaucus members or not) include:• an interest in the relationship between information, technology, and people;• a commitment to learning and understanding the role of information in humanendeavors;• a recognition that expertise in all forms of information is required for progress inscience, business, education, and culture; and6•a belief that this expertise must include understanding of the uses and users of
information, as well as information technologies and their applications.

The collective efforts of the iSchools (e.g., the iConference, the web site, and special projects)
are managed by the iCaucus. Members of the iCaucus pay an annual fee and have one vote on
iCaucus decisions. The iCaucus charter specifies its membership criteria. Candidate
memberships are reviewed by a membership committee and voted on by the full iCaucus
membership. While not rigid, iCaucus members are expected to have substantial sponsoredresearch activity, to engage in the training of future researchers (usually through an active,
research‐oriented doctoral program), and a commitment to progress in the information field.
Each iSchool’s representative to the iCaucus (usually a dean) is expected to report to the chief
academic officer of the parent institutions.
The iSchools sponsor the iConference as a forum for faculty, students, and researchers to share
their work and to develop their extended network of colleagues. The conference runs 3‐4 days
and the program typically includes a doctoral colloquium, poster and paper sessions, panels,
roundtables, and social events. The first iConference was held at Penn State in September
2005.12 Subsequent iConferences were hosted by the University of Michigan and UCLA, with the2009 iConference being hosted by UNC Chapel Hill.

VisionAs a relatively straightforward example, consider an iSchool’s approach to information
assurance, an issue of contemporary salience, for which we seek to produce strong results
while adapting to changing conditions. When viewed as a technological issue, scientists andengineers are likely to focus on topics such as cryptography, steganography, public key
infrastructure, and intrusion detection, or, in other words, technical areas in which they arelikely to have significant interest and expertise. The same set of issues viewed from theperspective of librarians may be more likely to draw attention to questions of identification,authentication, provenance, and access. A social scientist, on the other hand, may focus on
issues of confidentiality, authentication, privacy, and integrity. So who is right? Clearly, they all
are. Information assurance is a multidisciplinary problem with extraordinarily complex andinterrelated technical, policy, and social challenges. An iSchool provides the venue that enables
scholars from a variety of contributing disciplines to leverage their individual insights,
perspectives, and interests, informed by a rich, “trans‐disciplinary” community.
But trans‐disciplinary collaboration is not a natural act. Not only does each discipline bring to
the table a set of values, goals, models, economics, and ethics that have evolved slowly and in
relative isolation over an extended period of time within their discipline, but also they must
interact with and respond to the interests of external bodies. These are not always aligned inways that foster rapid agreement.

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•
•
•
•
•

Values – some will argue that strength is derived from information access, while others
contend that power is founded on information control.
Goals – some argue for increasing safety and security by way of imposing limits andlocks, while others opine that justice and accountability are advanced through dialogue
and debate.
Models – some see information access primarily as a societal responsibility, whereothers view it dominantly as a business opportunity.
Economics – information is expensive to create and publish, but cheap to replicate anddistribute.
Ethics – some argue that ethics are trumped by the realities of the real world, whileothers rebut that they are motivated by that very same world.

The complex interaction among the disciplines, when allowed to play out in an iSchool, provides
a rich environment for the education of information professionals. Exploiting the very tensions
that arise among the various constituencies enriches the creative insight of each. Among theissues feeding such creative dialogue are topics such as:
•
•
•
•
•

Intellectual property rights and its relation to fair use;
Open, extensible systems as an alternative to proprietary, closed designs;
Access to publicly‐funded information balanced against legitimate security
requirements;
Assuring ethical public policy when the need for expediency feels overwhelming; andRecognizing the need for both selective government secrecy and accountability throughopen records.

While the resolution of these issues is ultimately expressed in society’s evolving social contract,the iSchools serve a vital role by:
•
•
•
•
•
•

Preparing the next generation of information professionals;
Informing the relevant social and political structures regarding the implications and useof information technologies;
Assuring that debates surrounding the development of policy and law are properly
informed by sound scholarship;
Advising society of the potential consequences of policy alternatives;
Interpreting opportunities and implications of policy alternatives; andRemaining, themselves, engaged students of a highly dynamic landscape of change.

So what is an iSchool in the 21st century? Informed by decades of debate and responding to
exceptionally rapid changes in technology and uncertainty in public policy, iSchools foster thedevelopment of an intellectual space where true interdisciplinarity plays out. In so doing, they
introduce a range of challenges to traditional university structures and practices regardingorganizational boundaries, promotion and tenure policies, doctoral education, research
legitimacy, etc., as they create an environment where issues of information are addressed8systematically, regardless of disciplinary heritage or presumed 'ownership'. In this way,
iSchools respond to the salient issues of the time by stressing the production of strong results.
They are in a constant state of adaptation within their core competencies, while building
necessary bridges among disciplines. The iSchools recognize that the near‐term future will be
shaped largely by industry, so their applied research agenda is strongly influenced by theseemerging needs and directions. But the iSchools lead industry and government in the study oftimeless, recurring, theoretical questions, and educate the next generation of information
professionals who will shape the future of a global information society.

Recognition
Von Dran was a dynamic and powerful force in both the development of the School ofInformation Studies at Syracuse University and the formation of the iSchools movement. In his
own words, “Information schools are advancing a common notion that it's information, and not
simply the technology, that is the driver. The information field must harness a number ofdisciplines and approaches that critically affect the relevance, timeliness, accessibility, andquality of information. These schools bring together the various aspects of technology,
management, policy, and usability, among others, for the benefit of people everywhere.”In his honor, the iSchools have established an award to recognize others who havedemonstrated Ray’s commitment to excellence and leadership. The award is presented at theiConference and includes a monetary award and an opportunity for the award winner to sharehis or her vision of the challenges and opportunities confronting the information profession toconference participants.

Acknowledgment
The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Toni Carbo and Jonathan Grudin inreconstructing the historical timeline for the iSchools and of Maeve Reilly for improving thereadability of this article.

References
1

Lyman, Peter and Hal Varian. How much information? 2003. Berkeley, CA: School of Information
Management and Systems at the University of California at Berkeley, 2003
(http:// www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how‐much‐info‐2003/).
2
IDC. A Forecast of Worldwide Information Growth Through 2010. Framingham, MA: IDC, 2007(http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst‐reports/expanding‐digital‐idc‐white‐paper.pdf).
3
Bates, Marcia J. "The Invisible Substrate of Information Science." Journal of the American Society for
Information Science and Technology (JASIST), 1999: 50(12), 1043‐1050(http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/substrate.html).

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8
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9
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10
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11
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12
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