It is the goal of the MLIS@DEN program to prepare graduates to serve in public, academic, or specialized libraries and information settings, as well as in business and corporate settings where the effective management of information is crucial. 

To this end, the MLIS@DEN program:

Students have the opportunity to specialize in the following areas:

Academic libraries are exciting community hubs on campus and a focal point of intellectual exchange, collaborative learning, information and digital literacy education, and community engagement. Inspired by the idea of whole person education, they serve a pivotal role in supporting curriculum and instruction; research and scholarly collaboration; scholarly communication initiatives and open access to resources. 

Academic libraries take the lead on countering disinformation, promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA), mitigating the digital divide, and facilitating wellness, well-being, and meaningful leisure on campus. Academic librarians fulfill a variety of roles, from information literacy instructors to subject experts; from department liaisons to digital rights managers; from catalogers and metadata architects to collection managers; from research data managers to wellness and leisure facilitators.

Archivists and Special Collections professionals select, collect and manage documents, manuscripts, records and other unique texts—primary source materials—as a means for preserving and disseminating historical memory; understanding cultures, societies and government; and providing social accountability. While Special Collections are most often associated with and within libraries, archives are found in many different types of institutions, including, but not limited to, corporations, universities, historical societies, governments, churches, community organizations, and museums. The courses offered in this program provide a foundation for work in any of these organizations as well as allowing students to focus on specific areas of special interest.   

Records Management is the professional practice or discipline of controlling and governing what are considered to be the most important records of an organization throughout the record’s life-cycle, which begins at the time such records are conceived through to their eventual disposal. This work includes identifying, classifying, prioritizing, storing, securing, archiving, preserving, retrieving, tracking and destroying records. 

Community Engagement is a growing area of LIS practice that transcends traditional divisions by library type and by type of service. Expectations of community engagement included in the job descriptions of public services librarians, collection managers, youth and children’s librarians, catalogers and records managers, archivists, and information professionals working outside of traditional library settings. 

Community engagement LIS professionals step away from the idea of libraries as unilateral service providers, as information intermediaries, and as sources of authority and power; they build partnerships and collaborations with community members and capitalize on community resourcefulness, strengths, and resilience to help communities and individuals improve their well-being and quality of life.  Being a community engagement professional entails a holistic view of the information environment, from technical services to meaningful leisure and wellness. It also requires a skillset enabling professionals to build an evidence base for their practice and to do environmental scans, community studies, strategic planning, programming, outreach, partnership building, policy development, and marketing and advocacy, deriving many of their professional skills from helping occupations, such as social work and public health. 

A digital librarian has a full grasp of the theoretical, socio-technical, and methodological principles of digital information management, while information technology or systems librarians are responsible for the management and operations of a library’s technology infrastructure. Digital librarianship integrates the knowledge of the technological infrastructure and processes required to build a digital library or a digital archive; the management and mediation of digital artifacts in a networked environment; and the provision of service to a community of users. 

Specific areas of knowledge or skills in digital librarianship span conceptual foundations; collection development vis-à-vis digitization; organization, metadata schemas and vocabularies; digital library architecture including protocols and interoperability; searching and user services; and long-term preservation in the life cycle of the digital object. 

Librarians in public libraries guide users through the vast array of information available in print, electronic, and digital formats. Dedicated to serving diverse communities, public librarians help people find information and use it effectively. They must have knowledge of a wide variety of public and scholarly information sources. 

Reference librarians at public libraries manage staff, select resources for the library’s collection, and develop information programs and systems for the public to meet users’ needs. Increasingly, reference librarians in public libraries are expected to serve in outreach roles, finding innovative ways to engage community members in lifelong learning and information resources. Other roles include youth services librarians, who typically work with children and teens in public libraries, developing programming that promotes lifelong learning and a love of reading. 

* MLIS@Denver program allows students to customize their own specialization. These are just a few examples, and the possibilities are vast. It’s important to note that these are not formalized degree concentrations, but rather unique plans of study you can tailor to your specific goals.