Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Evolution of Research on Library and Information Science Education

Abstract

Scholarship of teaching and learning plays an important role in informing educational practices in every discipline. The aim of this study was to identify the trends of research on library and information science (LIS) education. A total of 1,986 articles on LIS education published from 1999 to 2018 were retrieved from bibliographic databases using topical and thesaurus-based queries. They were analyzed for their topics, methods, educational level and aspect, country, and outlet. The results showed that curriculum (what we teach) received more research attention than pedagogy (how we teach). Teaching organization of information (including cataloguing, classification, and metadata) was the most researched topic. Educational aspects of some sectors such as archives and record keeping and academic libraries have received more attention, while some other sectors such as school libraries have not been covered as widely. Survey was the most popular research method used in research articles. There were 134 articles covering LIS education in the United States, representing the greatest coverage by geographic region. While some topics such as serials librarianship and law were discussed in early 2000, in recent years topics such as political literacy, crisis management, privacy, digital humanities, and GLAM convergence have emerged in the literature.