The Australian Library Journal

A letter to the editor

Trish Milne and Peter Clayton

It is with deep regret that we inform you that the University of Canberra has decided to withdraw the Graduate Diploma Library and Information Management and the Master of Library and Information Management from the courses it offers. There will be no new intake of students into any of our entry-level librarianship courses from 2005 onwards.

You may recall a similar decision was made about eighteen months ago when the University decided that, because of low student numbers, the undergraduate Bachelor of Communication (Information) would cease to take students from the beginning of 2004. At that time academics within the Library and Information Studies area sought, and were given approval, to develop the Graduate Diploma into an online course in an effort to extend the potential student market beyond the ACT. We have been working very hard during the past year to ensure that the subjects we were preparing for this new mode of delivery would give students the very best learning experience. However, interest in the course has not been sufficiently high to convince University decision-makers that it had a viable future and the decision to cease offering it to new students was made last Friday. We are particularly sorry that the course was not allowed to be offered in online mode for a couple of years to test whether it could, indeed, prove viable.

Ours is the second oldest course in the country and many of our graduates are now leaders in the profession in Australia and on the international stage. It will have significant consequences for the profession in the ACT. There is a greater concentration of libraries and other types of information agencies in Canberra than in any other city in Australia. After the current students graduate, these organisations will be forced to recruit from interstate. For many years now the demand for new graduates has outstripped our ability to supply them and it was always very satisfying to know that our graduates had no trouble gaining employment - mostly even before graduation. Sadly, the number of students entering the courses fell below the number that the University considered to be viable.

All our present students will be given one-on-one course advice sessions to ensure that their study needs are met as effectively as possible. Although students were expecting to move to a fully online mode of delivery in 2005, one change will be that one or two subjects will still be offered in on-campus face-to-face mode, for the last time. We will be asking ALIA to extend our course recognition to cover these remaining students.

Our postgraduate program will continue for the time being, although in the longer term as staff retire it will inevitably decline. As you can imagine, all of the academics involved in our program very much regret this decision.