About the UP School of Library and Information Studies

Vision

We envision UP SLIS as the premiere Information School in South East Asia in areas of pedagogy, research, and practice towards bridging information, technology, and society.

Mission Statement

Aligning with the vision, the mission of the UP SLIS are as follows:

  • to create and implement programs that develop responsible and effective information professionals;
  • research on information issues, problems and concerns to provide alternatives and solutions;
  • provide services that enable organizations and individuals to make sense of information and develop information solutions in their respective situations.

Our History

The University of the Philippines is the first to offer library education in South East Asia. The program was initially offered as an Associate in Arts then later became a full bachelor’s program under the College of Liberal Arts. In July 1, 1961, the Institute of Library Science (ILS) was founded as a degree granting institution with Bachelor in Library Science (BLS). The Master of Library Science (MLS) was subsequently instituted in 1962. In 1994 and 1995, the programs were named Bachelor of Library and Information Science (BLIS) and Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) to reflect the changes in the content of the curriculum as it already included several units in Information Technology (IT) and Information Science.

In 2002, ILS was renamed to Institute of Library and Information Science (ILIS) in keeping with the name change in the courses and also to reflect the broader coverage of the programs and services. In 2007, a subsequent name change was done from ILIS to School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS). This reflected the increase in the number of students and also the broader coverage of the programs. The name change was deemed more inclusive of the other courses within the field like archives and records management, Information and Communications Technologies, Informatics etc. Library and Information Studies was also the more accepted nomenclature for the field. The change of name also reflects a broader scope of knowledge and practice that graduates are equipped with.

SLIS continues to produce top ranking graduates as evidenced in their performances in the Librarian Licensure Examination (LLE). The graduates are sought after not just in the field of librarianship but in allied fields such as archives and records management, information systems, knowledge management, digitization etc. The school has continued to lead in the developments in the field.

In 2015, the School was awarded Center of Excellence in Library and Information Science by CHED. Alongside with this recognition is the membership to the iSchools Consortium, a global organization composed of information schools all over the world that share the objective of advancing the information field and relate information, people and technology. Given this membership and recognition, SLIS strives to achieve improvements and developments in its program offerings, curricula, faculty, students, staff, library, facilities and laboratories to be comparable with other Information Schools worldwide.