I graduated from Syracuse University in 1960 and received my MLS the following year from Columbia University in 1961.  The DLS was next in 1980 also from Columbia, and I retired, after 35 years, from the faculty of the Queens College, CUNY GSLIS last year.  The switch from the bachelor's to the master's degree requirement happened in the early to mid-50s because of the need to professionalize the field in step with other fields, as was already pointed out earlier in this conversation.  Columbia and the University of Chicago were the schools that led the way in instituting this major change.  Jean Gates had a good basic text, first published in the late 1960s, followed by several revisions over the years.  She gave an excellent historical chapter or two where all this information could be found and students in many library schools through the seventies and early eighties were required to use the book in their first introductory course.  I trust this will help settle this debate.

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Marianne Cooper, D.L.S.
Associate Professor (Ret.) 
Graduate School of Library & Information Studies
Queens College, City University of New York
Flushing, N.Y.  11367
 
Phone:  718 997-3790
Fax:      718 997-3797
 
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