Follow-up study of graduates from the MSc Information Management programme at the University of Sheffield

Abstract

This paper reports the principal results from a postal survey (response rate: 62%) of the students graduating from the MSc Information Management programme in the Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield in the years 1994-96. The most important conclusions to be drawn from the responses that were received are that: most of the graduates rapidly found employment in librarianship and information science, with the largest single group of students starting work in the industrial or commercial sectors; the most commonly occurring duties are database management and searching for information, with library skills being required for only a small fraction of their duties; the extensive restructurings that have occurred in many organisations have left the graduates largely unaffected; use of the Internet, practical computer skills and database design are the elements of most use in their postgraduate careers.