School of Information Sciences - Library and Information Science Program

Digital Libraries Specialization

Students may enter this specialization in the Fall Term only.

This specialization offers the knowledge and skills essential for a successful career in the digital libraries field, focusing on relevant information technologies, information-organization principles, and end-user needs. 

Digital libraries represent one of the most rapidly-growing fields, and the career opportunities are increasing dramatically. The Digital Libraries Specialization will prepare future information specialists to design, develop and manage digital libraries and repositories, to work as digital-content managers, web masters, and information architects. 

The 36-credit course of study can be completed within one year and will focus on digital library design and development, information management, and content development. The School of Information Sciences is ideally positioned to offer such a program of study, since the specialization draws on both the Information Science and Library and Information Science disciplines, for which the School has garnered a national reputation. This specialization is offered on-campus only.

Prerequisites

Students interested in entering the Digital Libraries Specialization should have successfully completed undergraduate courses in algebra or trigonometry, introductory logic, statistical analysis, and introductory programming. Programming courses should cover C, C++, or Java. These courses must have been taken and successfully completed from an accredited institution of higher learning prior to matriculation. 

Students who have not yet fulfilled these requirements may do so at the University of Pittsburgh; for example, a student who must satisfy the introductory programming may take INFSCI 00012 Introduction to Programming prior to initiating the Master's level course of study. Alternatively, such students may take a comparable course focusing on the C programming language, at another institution prior to enrolling at the University of Pittsburgh.

Please note that these requirements must be fulfilled before a student begins the course of  study for the Digital Libraries specialization.

All Digital Libraries students must take the following CORE courses:

Other required courses are:

Course of Study

Fall Term Spring Term Summer Term
LIS 2670 Digital Libraries LIS 2700 Managing Library & Information Services LIS 2000 Understanding Information
LIS 2635 Information Architecture LIS 2005 Organizing & Retrieving Information INFSCI 2180 Knowledge Representation & the Semantic Web
INFSCI 2710 Database Management INFSCI 2140 Information Storage & Retrieval INFSCI 2955 Special Topics:  Systems/ Web Engineering
INFSCI 2500 Data Structures INFSCI 2560 Web Technologies & Standards Elective
Suggested: LIS 2690 Information Visualization
* Students begin their program of study in the Fall semester. While it is possible to pursue the Digital Libraries specialization on a part-time basis, the course of study outlined above is for a full-time student.

Faculty

Christinger Tomer, Lead Faculty
Research Interests:
Open source computing, scientometrics, digital libraries.

Peter Brusilovsky, Lead Faculty

Research Interests:
Adaptive Web systems, Social Web, adaptive hypermedia, user modeling, adaptive information systems, intelligent tutoring systems, e-learning, information visualization, digital libraries, human-computer interaction.

Daqing He, Lead Faculty

Research Interests:
Information retrieval and interactive retrieval-system design; user-modeling and adaptive Web-search system design and analysis; computational-linguistics and natural-language processing.

Sherry Koshman, Lead Faculty

Research Interests:
Investigating user interaction with information structures including web-based visualizations, clusters, socially generated representations, and mobile visualizations for information retrieval.

For more information about this specialization, please contact our Student Recruitment Coordinator at lisinq@sis.pitt.edu or 412-648-3108 . 

Strong Foundation

The blend of theory and application at the iSchool distinguishes its graduates in the job market, giving them a strong foundation of theoretical knowledge and practical experience.