Department of Library and Information Science

Department Overview

The Department of Library and Information Science (DLIS) has been at the forefront of research in the information field for almost 30 years. Although the department has been with Universiti Malaya (UM) since 1992, it is also the youngest department in the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences (FASS), joining in June 2021. DLIS brings together a vibrant community of students, educators, and researchers dedicated to studying and advancing the information field through innovative research and teaching.

We are recognized as leaders in the LIS field in Malaysia, with an international reputation for our teaching and research quality and our graduates' achievements. The department offers one-of-a-kind graduate programmes. Being in UM, one of the world's top 100 universities, we are also one of the world's top-ranked schools in library and information management, consistently ranked in the world's top 50

The department offers a research-intensive study environment with international partnerships and competitive research funding. It has well-established research that has been developed over 20 years, for example in scientometrics, digital libraries, information behaviour and scholarly communication. Our new areas of research have emerged from rapid advances in the information world, such as in data science, health informatics and digital humanities. Our students have ready access to their professors and a large variety of work-based learning opportunities at local, national, and international organizations. Most senior librarians, including several chief librarians in the country, are the department's alumni

The department houses the Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science (MJLIS), a premier journal in the field indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus. We also host the bi-annual International Conference on Libraries, Information and Society (ICoLIS), which just concluded its eighth iteration in August 2021.

Our field is characterized by its distinctive, interdisciplinary focus on the interactions between people, information, and digital technologies. It has the ultimate goal of enhancing information access and managing, sharing, and using information to benefit society.

Explore our programmes and courses and start your journey at the Department of Library and Information Science, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya