Content area
Full text
Irish Library and Information Schools: University College Dublin
Edited by Ian Cornelius
Introduction
In the landscape which comprises library and information studies education in Britain and Ireland one of the most historic Diploma programmes available to intending professionals is that offered by the School of Information and Library Studies (SILS) at University College Dublin, a constituent College, like Cork and Galway, of the National University of Ireland (NUI). Given the special focus of this issue of Aslib Proceedings, as well as recent and proposed changes at the School, the following account describes some key phases in its development and operational context. Launched in early 1928, at a time when the population of Ireland was less than three million, the UCD Diploma holders of the session 2008/2009 will shortly witness the 80th anniversary of the award's first Conferring. In some respects, due to its inclusion of artefact-oriented specialist coverage like "Archives preservation", or "Rare books curatorship", the UCD Diploma curriculum was like that offered at UCL SLAIS, as outlined in a previous issue of Aslib Proceedings by Mirjam Foot ([10] Foot, 2006). However, many additional influences from the UK, and Ireland's information and library sector also made their impact, as will be seen in the following account.
Origins of the UCD Diploma, and Masters (MLIS) programmes
Early October 1919 had marked the definitive launch of the CUKT-funded "Diploma in Librarianship" at University College London; by October 1921 this had diversified into a fulltime postgraduate Diploma available to Arts graduates ([23] Plant, 2007a, [50] b). Just under a decade later, at University College Dublin, the Inaugural Lecture of 14 February 1928 by Fr Stephen Brown, SJ, the noted bibliographer of Irish literary fiction, signalled the full implementation of the UCD "Diploma in Library Training". Hosted by the University Library, then a collection of some 70,000 volumes under the direction of James J. O'Neill, University Librarian from 1917 to 1951, this Diploma depended not only on O'Neill and his senior colleagues for delivery of the syllabus, but also on UCD academic Faculty and external Guest lecturers, a situation which was to prevail until the early 1970s.
By 4 May 1929 the first Examination candidates had been conferred at the College's alma mater building near St Stephen's Green...