Introduction

It is a sad fact that far fewer people survive to celebrate a platinum wedding anniversary (seventy years) than they do a diamond anniversary (sixty years). No doubt that is the main reason why the former is much less well-known than the latter. Thankfully, the marriage of the doctoral program in library and information science to what is now the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois has lasted long enough to achieve platinum status—due to the longevity of both parties, as well as their compatibility.¹ Of course, to wait to celebrate the marriage at the three-quarters-of-a-century mark might have proved even more impactful, but then the opportunity would have been lost to use the platinum anniversary to signal the recent change (2016) of name of the school—now, the School of Information Sciences—as well as the changing complexion of the doctoral program that the change of name partially represents.

The school's adoption of the information sciences rubric is reflected in the great diversity of doctoral studies now undertaken in it. The information sciences spectrum, as Marcia Bates (2015) illustrates, is one of great width, stretching—to cite just a handful of disciplines and subdisciplines—from library science, museum studies, bibliography, archival science, and the sociology of information, to records management, information management, information science, data curation, data analytics, information systems, and informatics. Nowadays, the research interests of the school's doctoral students map fairly closely onto this spectrum, effectively spanning the information sciences—hence the title of this issue of Library Trends.

This width contrasts markedly with the relatively constricted nature of the original doctoral program. Compare, for example, the titles of the first ten doctoral theses awarded in the school during the period 1951 to 1957 to the titles of the most recent ten (2015–2016):²

• • The Use of Library Materials in Doctoral Research: A Study of the Effect of Differences in Research Method (1951)

• • Regulations Relating to the Book Trade in London from 1357 to 1586 (1953)

• • The Development of Reference Services in American Research Libraries (1954)

• • Alexander Gill, The Elder, High Master of St. Paul's School: An Approach to Milton's Intellectual Development (1955)

• • The Influence of Scholars on Research Library Development at the University of Illinois (1955)

• • A Study of the Problem of Complete Documentation in Science and Technology (1956)

• • Characteristics of Libraries in Selected Higher Military Educational Institutions in the United States (1957)

• • Professional Development of Reference Librarians in a University Library: A Case Study (1957)

• • A Study of Certain Factors in Institutions of Higher Education Which Influence Students to Become Librarians (1957)

• • Capturing the Context of Digital Literacy: A Case Study of Illinois Public Libraries in Underserved Communities (2015)

• • Deliberating Environmental Policy: Information Seeking and Use in Canada's House of Commons Standing Committees (2015)

• • Design Problems in Crowdsourcing: Improving the Quality of Crowdbased Data Collection (2015)

• • The Genesis of Youth Services in Public Libraries in China, 1912–1937 (2015)

• • Libraries and the System of Information Provision in the 1930s United States: The Transformation of Technology, Access, and Policy (2015)

• • Methods Metadata: Curating Scientific Research Data for Reuse (2015)

• • The Community Informatics of an Aging Society: A Comparative Case Study of Public Libraries and Senior Centers (2016)

• • Educational Hypercomics: Learners, Institutions, and Comics in E-Learning Interface Design (2016)

• • Encoding Power: The Scripting of Archival Structures in Digital Spaces Using the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model (2016)

• • Latinas in Telecommunications: Intersectional Experiences in the Bell System (2016)

Whereas in the 1950s the dominant themes were libraries and the book, today, in the early twenty-first century, these have been supplemented by multiple considerations arising from digital society and its technologies. Arguably, there has also been a shift in terms of greater interdisciplinarity.³

This year, 2017, marks the seventieth year of the program, as well the seventieth anniversary of the initiative to inaugurate it. The decision to scope out a doctoral program was made in the fall of 1947. In October, the director of what was at that time Illinois Library School...