Public History/Library and Information Science

Courses

This dual degree program allows you to apply four courses (12 credits) to both master’s degrees: HIS 401 Modern Historical Research; and 9 credits from among HIS 404/LIS 253 Oral History, HIS 510 History of Material Culture, HIS 512 History as Visual Record, HIS 506 U.S. Museums and Historic Sites, or HIS 525 Advanced Topics in Public History.

The credit distribution for the dual degree program is as follows:

Admission

Applicants must possess a bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university with a 3.0 grade point average or above.

For additional requirements and information, please visit Graduate Admission.

Tuition and Financial Aid

The Division of Library and Information Science offers the Rev. Brian J. O’Connell, C.M. Scholarship, named after the late Dean of St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, to high-achieving applicants who earn GPAs of 3.4 or higher (on a 4.0 scale) for their most recent degrees. Incoming students do not need to apply separately for this scholarship, but are automatically granted partial tuition reprieve based on academic merit.

The Department of History offers the Nickolas Davatzes Scholarship to qualified graduate students who are committed to teaching and engaging in research in American History or Classical and/or Modern Greek History, and who demonstrate financial need. The scholarship fund was established in 2007 by Nickolas Davatzes ’62C, ’64G, ’95Hon, who established the A&E Network and the History Channel, and Dorothea Hayes Davatzes ’66Ed. Scholarships are granted by the department on a competitive basis and provide $5,000 for summer research or tuition assistance.

Other scholarship opportunities include the Mildred Lowe Memorial Scholarship Fund and the H.W. Wilson Foundation Scholarship. For more information about scholarships and tuition, please visit Tuition and Financial Aid.

St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences also offers students the opportunity to gain professional experience in their chosen field of study through graduate assistantships, which offer tuition remission and a stipend in exchange for service to an academic unit. Graduate assistantships are also available in administrative departments. For more information, please visit Graduate Assistantships and Fellowships.

Career Outcomes

With the combination of a Master of Arts in Public History and a Master of Science in Library and Information Science, you look forward to an exciting career as a historian, archivist, curator, museum specialist, librarian, writer, or editor helping academic institutions, libraries, museums, and cultural centers across the world protect and share their resources.

By completing both master’s degrees, you become a trained practitioner of “living history,” able to master changes in research, publishing, image reproduction, and other areas of digitization. The changing nature of libraries, museums, historic sites, heritage tourism, and historical research requires professionals who are adept at facilitating information exchange, coping with an overload of information from diverse sources, sensitive to ethical issues related to collecting and exhibiting cultural property, as well as intellectual property issues, and who can be strong advocates for cultural institutions and information resources.