The College of Information was founded in 1965 at the University of Maryland (UMD) in response to demand for library education in the DC/MD/VA area, which lacked a library school in a public university at that time. Originally named the School of Library and Information Services, the school's first home was in the University's McKeldin Library and it offered a Master of Library Science (MSL) degree program. The school became accredited by the American Library Association in 1967 and introduced a PhD program in 1969. However, in 1991, coupled with the economic downturn (the University had implemented furloughs as well) there was a call for the College of Library and Information Services at Maryland to be shut down. The program avoided this and in 2001, the school was renamed the College of Information Studies. Dropping “libraries” and replacing “services” with “studies” was deliberate, and reflected both the broader scope of its research while still respecting its impact on practice and policy in libraries. In 2024, the Bachelor of Science in Information Science (InfoSci) program became the second largest degree program at the University of Maryland College Park.
The University of Maryland College of Information Studies announced in 2024 that it will officially be renamed the College of Information. The college is a leader in library and information science, cybersecurity, data science and visualization, archives, human-computer interaction, AI and machine learning, information justice, social media, online communities, gaming for education and more.
