Endurance and coherence: the post‐2020 iSchool

The iSchools Organization encompasses 121 information and library science schools around the globe, and is rapidly expanding. Officially begun in the early 2000s as a way to bolster a sense of field-wide purpose and identity relevant to the twenty-first century, among other objectives, iSchools are positioned as those sharing an interest in information, people, and technology. Early questions about endurance of the iSchools movement are now largely overshadowed by, and joined with, questions about coherence of the iSchools movement. This 90-minute virtual panel will present international findings about issues that are currently, as of 2020–2021, top-of-mind for iSchool leaders, pertaining to: 1.) views on and of the field of information; 2.) faculty and institutional relationships; and 3.) extra-unit alliances and alignments, including with and within the iSchools Organization itself. It draws mainly upon interview data from the funded project i4G: Shaping the iSchools' Identity and Interaction in a Globalized World.