Affiliations: The Department of Information Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Science, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. E-mail:[email protected]
Correspondence:
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Present address: School of Library and Information Science, University of Washington, Box 352930, Seattle, WA, 98195-2930, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: What is the future for graduate information education in Australia? The Department of Informa-tion Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney has been grappling with this question over the past eighteen months with a view to revising its Master of Arts in Information. As a result of this review, the Department will be launching three new Graduate Diplomas and a new look Master of Arts in Information in 1999. This article is however not just a description of curriculum development. Rather, the article reveals the tensions, assumptions, marketing expectations and institutional negotiations that have resulted in, what the development team considers to be, a new focus for information education at the graduate level. Hopefully this approach might be used as a model for revitalising what has in recent years become a flagging information education sector in this country. Australian information schools are shrinking. How can this be happening, when the rhetoric of our time (information age, global information infrastructure, information superhighway, information economy) is constantly proclaiming that we need people who can work with information. Why have information schools become marginalised when all the indicators say that they should be the most vital part of the professional education landscape?
