History

The Faculty's origins lie in the Escola Superior de Bibliotecàries created in 1915 by the Mancomunitat de Catalunya. The main objective of that centre, supervised and directed by Eugeni d'Ors, was to train the staff who would take charge of the Xarxa de Biblioteques Populars de Catalunya, which began to be implemented throughout the country from 1918. To create it, the most innovative trends from Europe and the United States were taken into account. From the beginning until the implementation of the degree in Documentation, the syllabus was created as a three-year degree with the access regulations of those governing the university.

Administratevely, the School was supervised by different Catalan public institutions:

• 1915-1925, Mancomunitat de Catalunya
• 1925-1931, Diputació de Barcelona
• 1931-1939, Government of Catalonia
• 1939-1982, Diputació de Barcelona
• 1982-1998, Diputació de Barcelona, attached to the University of Barcelona
• Des del 1999, University of Barcelona

In 1981, the curriculum guidelines were published  for the State's Escoles de Biblioteconomia i Documentació. The following year, the Escola, which had prepared the draft guidelines, obtained the rank of university school, and was attached, for academic matters, to the University of Barcelona. The Ministry of Education and Science, in regonition from the work awarded the Corbata de l'Orde Civil d'Alfons X el Savi (1982). Altough Library Science studies have along hisotry of Catalonia, were not officially recognized by the Ministry until 1978, in which the creation decree is approved. This was the result of the work of the Catalan librarian community for the official recognition of this profession, for which there was no regulated training in the State.

More recently,  with the needed adaptation of university studies to the University Reform Law, the Universities Council called on the Escola to represent the teaching interests of the profession in the working group that was created for this purpose. The new indicative plan for the diploma course was based on this proposal.

In July 1997, the Diputació de Barcelona, then the owener of the Escola, the Univeristy of Barcelona and the Comissionat per a Universitats i Recerca de la Generalitat de Catalunya signed agreements that established the gradual integration of the Escola into the Univeristy of Barcelona and the creation of a centre of its own within the Unviersity itself.

The demand for a secondy cycle in library and documentation studies crystallized in 1992 with the official approval of the Documentation degree (published together with the indicative curriculum, in the BOE núm. 206, of Augut 27). On February 18, 1998, the Consell Interuniversitari de Catalunya reported favourably on the teaching of the second-cycle degree in Documentation within the Univeristy of Barcelona. The Escola was respnsible for launching this degree the 1998 - 99 academic year.

With the incoropration of second-cycle studies, the Escola Universitària de Biblioteconomia i Documentació began its process of transformation into a Faculty, which culminated in August 1999, with the name of Faculty of Library and Information Science  (Decree 226/1999 of the Government of Catalonia, of July 27, DOGC of August 9).

This fact, together with the start of doctoral studies in 2000, represented the culmination of a long process of implementing libary and documentation studies at all educational levels at the Univeristy. From this moment on, a new stage opened in which these teachings and also the associated research could be developed on equal terms with other scientific disciplines.

From June 2003, the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA) commissioned a working team formed by representatives of all Spanish university centres that taught library and documentation degrees, and coordinated by this faculty, to develop a bachelor's degree project and syllabus within the framework of the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The result was the publication of the white paper for the new degree that was proposed: Degree in Information and Documentation.

The incorporation into the EHEA meant the implementation of the new system of degrees, official master's degrees and doctorates; the clousure of old degrees, and the introduction of new teaching mechanisms such as credit calculation, competency-based work and continuous assessment. In the Faculty of Library and Information Science, this was reflected in the start of the degree in Information and Information Science in the 2009 - 2010 academic year and the extinction of the diploma in Library and Information Science and the degree in Information Science.  

In recent years, a powerful range of official master's degrees adapted to the EHEA has been developed:

• 2006-2007. Master's degree in Digital Content Management (in collaboration with Pompeu Fabra University until the 2016 - 2017 academic year)
• 2008-2009. University Master's Degree in School Library and Reading Promotion (in collaboration with the Autonomous University of Barcelona) 
• 2012-2013. Master's degree in Libraries and Heritage Collections
• 2015-2016. University Master's Degree in Management of Libraries and Information Services 
• 2019-2020. University Master's Degree in Digital Humanities 

Likewise, other courses have been opened, such as:

• 2011-2012. UB-specific master's degree in Document Management and Information in Companies 
• 2012-2013. Diploma in Book-keeping. 
• 2017-2018. Diploma in Reading Prescription.
• 2017-2018. Postgraduate inSocial Media

It is also worth highlighting the start of the doctoral programme Documents and Documentary Systems in the Digital Environment in the 2000 - 2001 academic year, which was adapted to the new EHEA with the name of Doctorate in Information and Communication in the 2015 - 2016 academic year. 

In the 2012 - 2013 academic year, the degree in Audiovisual Communication, which until then had been taught at the Faculty of Teacher Training, on the Mundet Campus, was moved to the Sants building and incorporated into the Faculty's teaching offer. With this incorporation, the survival of the Faculty as an independent centre was ensured, by having the minimum number of students, teaching staff and technical, management and administrative staff and services necessary for the correct functioning of a university centre. 

The arrival of studies in audiovisual communication and also the research lines that go with it meant that from that moment on, the Faculty began to have two lines: the traditional one of library science and documentation and the new one of audiovisual communication. This greater diversity would gradually spread to other areas of Faculty's life.  

The reinforcement of library science and documentation with other studies, almost always audiovisual communication or journalism, had already occured in most Spanish universities, and the University of Barcelona was one of the last to join this trend, which is also visible on an international scale. This is not surprising, since these are studies that have a lot in common and that, therefore, can be strengthened by being together. In our case, these synerfies were materialized in the InfoCom offer, the double degree in Information Management and Digital Documentation and in Audiovisual Communication. 

As has been seen in this brief history, the Faculty has always adapted to the evolution of society and the changes inherent in its professional profiles. 

Research has intensified at the Univesity and, to properly address this challenge at the Faculty, the Centre for Research in Information, Communication and Culture of the University of Barcelona (CRICC) was created in 2017. All the lines of research develeoped at the centre are integrated. 

For years, library and documentation studies have not only trained librarians to manage libraries, but also trained them for increasingly diverse professional opportunities, always related to information management in any of its variants. As has happened in other universities, it was considered appropriate to align the name and contents of the degree in Information and Documentation with the new reality. For this reason, a new, updated syllabus was implemented in the 2019 - 2020 academic year and its name was changed to Bachelor's Degree in Information Management and Digital Documentation. 

The update of the name also reached the Faculty, which also needed  its name to incorporate the mention of the new audiovisual communication studies. This was achieved in July 2019 when the centre's name was changed to its current name: Faculty of Information and Audiovisual Media (resolution EMC/2033/2019 of the Government of Catalonia, of July 18, DOGC of July 24).