UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
School of Library and Information Science Volume 29- Number 1
Spring 2007
Search for School’s Next Director to Get Underway Tim Sineath’s Early Notice of Plan to Retire Assures Time to Identify Successor Last fall Timothy W. Sineath, Director of the School of Library and Information Science, announced he would step down from that position summer 2008. He will remain on the faculty and enter the phased retirement program beginning July 1, 2008. Dean J. David Johnson of the College of Communications and Information Studies met with SLIS faculty in the fall to talk about the search for a Director and again in January to discuss the process in greater detail. At the January meeting, Dean Johnson explained the need for a broad membership on the search committee, including staff, students, and members of the professional community; and he presented the calendar for the search: mid March: search committee named; mid April: statement of qualifications and position advertisement developed; late April: advertisements published; summer: initial applications received; early fall: invited candidates campus visits scheduled. Dean Johnson expects UK Provost Subbaswamy to participate in the interviews, as will Dean Johnson, and at the conclusion of the interviews the Dean and the Provost will agree on the person to be offered the position, Director of the School of Library and Information Science. The next Director will assume that position July 1, 2008. During the January meeting with faculty, Dean Johnson said he had become aware of the debate throughout the library and information science community, about which should be stressed, “library” or “information,” and he noted that one outcome of the debate was the formation of the “ISchools Project.” One of the critical issues the SLIS must face, the Dean said, is whether to emphasize the “L” or the “I”, or some synthesis of the two. What to emphasize will be a “strategic decision,” he said, and the next Director “will drive that decision forward.” Dr. Johnson said, too, that in deciding how it is represented in the “I” versus “L” debate, it is imperative that the School be sensitive to the University’s drive to achieve Top 20 status. (For more on this, see below.)
· · · · ·
Dean Johnson said that “to get a feel for the lay of the land and to learn what the issues are” within library and information science, he attended two ASIST conferences. Moreover, he attended the I-Schools conference in Ann Arbor last fall and would attend the ALISE conference later in January. Dr. Johnson has talked informally with some individuals, in an effort to further his own education and to get an idea who might be available for the Director’s position, and he said he would pass along to the search committee the names of those he wants to make certain the committee is aware of. The search for a Director comes at a time when the Top 20 planning process is well underway and promises to produce decisions that will influence significantly how resources are allocated throughout the University. President Lee Todd’s determined pursuit of the legislatively-mandated Top 20 status (see following article) is driving the planning process. The Board of Trustees adopted the Top 20 Business Plan in December 2005, and the 2006-09 Strategic Plan, which the Board of Trustees adopted in October of last year, marks “the first step in the implementation of the Business Plan.” The Strategic Plan incorporates specific “Measures of Progress.” Academic units were to develop strategic plans after the Board of Trustees approved the University Strategic Plan. In his memorandum to deans, about strategic planning, Provost Subbaswamy said that academic units were “to update their action plans to better align them with the university’s goals and priorities.” In going about this, the Provost wrote, “The fundamental questions for you will be: (1) What is my college’s role in UK’s quest for Top 20 Status; and (2) What is the appropriate level of resources (within the overall bounds of the Top 20 Business Plan) for my college?” In the College of Communications and Information Studies, Dean Johnson directed each of the units – the Department of Communication, the School of Journalism and Telecommunications, and the School of Library and Information Science – to develop a strategic plan for the unit, which would be folded into the College plan.