UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies - History

History

The UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies can trace its history back to a state legislative act in 1881 that established a "southern branch" of the California State Normal School in Los Angeles. When it opened in 1882 (on what is now the site of the Central Library of the Los Angeles Public Library system), its primary responsibility was teacher training. The Department of Education was established in 1894. The school was renamed the Los Angeles State Normal School in 1914, and in 1917 the school was moved to a larger site on Vermont Avenue (on what is now the site of Los Angeles City College). The new facility included an elementary school where teachers-in-training could practice their teaching technique on children. That same year Ernest Carroll Moore (for whom Moore Hall is named) was appointed its director. The University of California opened its southern branch in 1919 by replacing the Los Angeles State Normal School with the University's Teachers College. A southern branch of the College of Letters and Science, which enrolled considerably fewer students than the Teachers College, was also established as part of the campus. Moore became director of the southern campus (later provost) and dean of the Teachers College, a position he held until 1939. The campus moved to its current location in Westwood, Los Angeles in 1929.

In 1930 Los Angeles City Librarian Everett R. Perry proposed to the president of the University of California the establishment of a library school on the Los Angeles campus of the University. By 1935 the School of Librarianship was opened at the University's campus at Berkeley (now the UC Berkeley School of Information), which was later suspended through World War II. UCLA University Librarian Lawrence Clark Powell, among other Los Angeles leaders, resumed the prewar interest in a library school at UCLA. The Regents of the University of California approved the establishment of the school in 1958. Powell (for whom Powell Library is named) resigned his position as University Librarian to become dean of the new school. The school was established with collaboration from the School of Librarianship at Berkeley. The two schools initially created a single alumni association and doctoral students took courses, when appropriate, at either campus. From its inception the school hired faculty from other disciplines, namely mathematician Robert M. Hayes. With innovation in information technology after World War II, library programs became increasingly multidisciplinary, effectively providing a disciplinary home for the interdisciplinary study of information science. Many library schools have since been repositioned as information schools, schools of information science, or schools of library and information science. See the history of information science.

The School of Education and the School of Library and Information Science were incorporated into the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies in 1994. UCLA is the only major research university in the country that combines these two areas of study into a single school or college.