Vigencia

To learn how graduate LIS programs, cover legal issues, I analyzed the content of ALA- accredited graduate LIS curricula for the ways in which they incorporate law and legal issues. I examined course listings, course descriptions, and any available accompanying syllabi.

I drew research methodology guidance from the 2008 Gathegi and Burke study of the curricula and faculty expertise of LIS schools to gauge, among other things, the level of

preparedness of graduates in approaching legal issues in the information field (p. 2) and, more simply, to describe the various law-related courses offered. They studied sixty-three LIS

institutions in the United States and Canada, most of which were members of the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). For my research, I targeted ALA-

accredited LIS graduate programs in the United States. There are several reasons for this difference. First, since only U.S. law is relevant in U.S. courtrooms, the legal issues covered in Canadian LIS classrooms is out of scope. Second, ALA-accredited programs are a superset of U.S.-based ALISE programs. I got a list of ALISE member institutions from an ALISE representative via email. This membership list was current as of August 22, 2017. I removed Canadian institutions, international partner institutions, and the National Library of Medicine. The final list included forty-seven institutions. I pulled a list of ALA-accredited LIS programs from the searchable database provided on the ALA website, including only institutions located in American states. The final list included fifty-three institutions, including all forty-seven

institutions represented in the ALISE membership list. Therefore, to achieve the most thorough analysis of the current state of LIS graduate education, I chose to study United States-based ALA-accredited institutions.57

Gathegi and Burke focused on four areas: course offerings explicitly about legal issues, the existence (or non-existence) of a joint law and information graduate program, the

institution’s perception of the “criticality of information law on the future of the information field” (p. 3), and the existence of faculty members with law (JD) degrees. The authors gathered data in several ways. First, they examined responses from the 2004 Library and Information Science Education Statistical Report. Second, they sent questionnaires to deans and directors of

57 _{The appendix provides a full list of ALA-accredited LIS graduate programs. The institutions based outside of the}

the various LIS programs. Finally, they analyzed curriculum materials on the institutions’ websites. In my study, the focus is how law and legal issues are incorporated into LIS graduate education. Therefore, I drew from one of the Gathegi and Burke research areas—course

offerings involving legal issues. Like these researchers, I categorized and coded courses involving law.

3.2.1 Content Analysis and Coding

Gathegi and Burke applied Rogers' diffusion of innovation theory in their categorization and coding of law-related LIS courses, specifically Rogers’ technology cluster construct. The authors explained:

According to Rogers, a technology cluster is comprised of one or more unique elements perceived as closely related. In this setting courses naturally fell into one of three major categories. These categories are: the information law cluster; the legal information management and processing cluster; and the intellectual freedom-ethics cluster. Within each cluster there were additional groups (p. 4).

My content analysis of LIS graduate curricula was similar in approach. I gathered course listings, descriptions, and syllabi publicly available online. I focused on gathering course schedules from the past two academic years—Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, and Fall 2019. If possible, I avoided relying on full course catalogues because many classes are held irregularly or even have been discontinued. Including these courses could give a distorted sense of what is currently being covered in LIS graduate programs.

Many ALA-accredited programs post course schedules and descriptions on their websites. When institutions did not post their course schedules and descriptions online, I contacted the departments’ program managers and requested that they share the information by email. Of the fifty-three ALA-accredited programs, I was able to collect and analyze data for each. This 100% participation rate is particularly notable since this part of my study aims to be a

comprehensive update on the 2008 Gathegi and Burke study about the current state of LIS education and how it incorporates law and legal issues.

In deciding how to assign codes to graduate LIS courses, I looked to research

methodology texts (Babbie, 2010; Charmaz, 2006) for direction. These authors recommend using a combination of pre-set codes and emergent or open codes.58 This provides a sufficient mix of frequently-assigned codes and codes rarely used and unexpected, but relevant nonetheless. Because my study is meant to be an update of the Gathegi and Burke study, I began with some of the categories they identified for courses that cover law or legal issues. When I identified

additional categories, I adjusted my coding and incorporated new categories.

I collected course listings from the various institutions’ homepages and noted course titles that include “law” or “legal” in the title. I also looked for these terms in course descriptions in the online course schedules and catalogs so that I did not miss courses that focus on legal issues but do not have those words in the official title. However, course titles and descriptions sometimes cover something more specific than law or legal issues (for instance, copyright or privacy law). Additionally, some classes involve a hefty component of discussion about law because multiple classes list this as a focus.

Therefore, I began the coding process by automatically including courses with the following terms in course descriptions and courses with syllabi indicating three or more class sessions with these terms:

 Law

 Legal issues  Legal policy

58 _{These are also referred to as manifest content and latent content (Babbie, p. 338).}

 Public policy

 Freedom of information  Copyright [law]

 Intellectual property [law]  Censorship

 Constitutional issues  Constitutional [law]  Civil rights [law]

 First amendment [law]  Privacy [law]

 Legal liability  Legal information  Legal research

Some syllabi mention components that could include legal issues, but seemingly in a negligible way. For instance, if a syllabus for a computer programming course noted a session’s topic to include “security issues,” this does not indicate that law is the focus of the classroom discussion, although legal issues are involved in security. If a government documents class did not appear to include any content about legal research or substantive constitutional, state, or local law, I deemed the class not truly law-focused, but instead likely related to the management of a particular type of materials. These types of courses and class topics were not sufficiently related to law and legal issues to include them in my summary. As mentioned above, when I could examine a syllabus and I noted them as including three or more classes dedicated to these law- related topics, I included these in my content analysis of LIS curricula. Over a semester, three classes involving law-related topics provides a significant coverage of the law as opposed to a mere mention of the law.

This part of my coding process was more difficult because it required closer examination and judgment. Some courses that do not mention law in the course title, description, or even in the syllabus may, in fact, touch upon legal issues. For example, policy courses and management courses likely include lectures in which law is mentioned but not emphasized. Therefore, my coding was an iterative process. Through my analysis I was able to further elaborate my criteria for including certain courses. Each time I encountered a course that required me to use my

judgment, I took note of what criteria I found to be suitable to use as a gauge to include or exclude certain courses. By the end of my analysis, I had a more refined and empirically

authentic set of terms and criteria to report. Just as Gathegi and Burke, I documented counts and relative percentages for the various types of courses taught across ALA-accredited intuitions.

3.2.2 Special Coding and Analysis

I coded each course in only one main category, even when courses included more than one legal issue. To decide which category was most appropriate, I looked for the legal issue emphasized in course descriptions, and if a syllabus was available, I looked for what legal issue was included in multiple class sessions, or was part of a course assignment. If no one particular legal topic seemed predominant, I coded the course within the general law and legal issues category. This was not common. I coded seven courses within this category because the courses covered multiple legal issues without one issue seeming to be the clear focus.59 _{Also, some}

courses do not explicitly list in syllabi or course descriptions law or specific legal issues, yet nonetheless appear to involve law. For instance, “Management and Governance” courses likely include legal topics, but these courses do not fit well within the other law and legal issues-related course categories in my analysis; therefore, I highlighted these courses separately.