The iSchools Caucus

University of California, Berkeley

School of Information

University of California, Irvine

The Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

University of California, Los Angeles

Graduate School of Education and Information Studies

Carnegie Mellon University

School of Information Systems and Management, Heinz College

Drexel University

College of Information Science and Technology

Florida State University

College of Information

Georgia Institute of Technology

College of Computing

University of Illinois

Graduate School of Library and Information Science

Indiana University

School of Informatics

Indiana University

School of Library and Information Science

University of Maryland

College of Information Studies

University of Michigan

The School of Information

University of North Carolina

School of Information and Library Science

The Pennsylvania State University

College of Information Sciences and Technology

University of Pittsburgh

School of Information Sciences

Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies

Singapore Management University

School of Information Systems

Syracuse University

School of Information Studies

University of Texas, Austin

School of Information

University of Toronto

Faculty of Information

University of Washington

Information School

notably those at Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, and UC Irvine. Of these Georgia Tech and Irvine have joined the iSchool caucus—Carnegie Mellon participates via the School of Information Systems and Management. All three represent movement toward the iSchool vision by computer scientists. In contrast, Syracuse and Pittsburgh have more alignment with information systems, UCLA with education, and Rutgers with communication.

So, from diverse origins, a collection of schools emerged with highly overlapping visions. This convergence suggests an academic movement with considerable traction. Its presence in several high-profile universities suggests that it is lodged under the academic skin. For sure, many top universities, such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Virginia, have nothing in the area, but additional universities were in the Wikipedia iSchool list at the time of this writing, some of which are considering joining the iCaucus.

To anticipate how this might evolve, we can examine parallels. Interdisciplinary fields such as public policy and neuroscience succeeded first at a few pioneering universities, after which other major players created similar programs and eventually formed schools. Cognitive science had a similar multidisciplinary formation in the late 1970s, but growth has been slower, with several departments but no major schools. It is too early to confidently forecast the evolution of the information focus, but with so many schools already in place, it appears to have reached a critical mass.

The iConferences

A sense of common purpose and identity was forged by meetings of iSchool deans that evolved into the iConference series. In 1988 Dean Toni Carbo of Pittsburgh initiated semiannual gatherings with the Syracuse and Drexel deans, soon joined by Rutgers, at which they met privately and with the faculty of the host university to discuss a range of organizational, curricular, and research issues. This practice waned but was resumed by Carbo in 2001 with the inclusion of the University of Michigan, where the transformation of a leading library school had legitimized the effort in many eyes, and the University of Washington. In 2003 the number of participating Schools doubled [ 6].

Shared interests and common understanding were amplified by movements of faculty that somewhat resemble court marriages in feudal Europe. As noted, Hal Varian left Michigan to