There is a brief exposition, in a historical perspective, about the evolution of the professional education in Portugal, in the area of Library and Information Science, since the creation of the Curso de Bibliotecario-Arquivista, in 1887, until its closure in 1982, when it was replaced by the Curso de Especializacao em Ciencias Documentais (CECD). After that, there is an analysis of the CECD, a two years postgraduate course that constitutes the indispensable requirement to occupy the places of librarian, archivist or documentalist in the public administration's institutions and which represents the dominant model in Portugal. Some new education models, at postgraduate and undergraduate level are also approached, especially the alternative course that appeared in 2001, at under graduated level, in the University of Porto, because it constitutes an innovative proposal in the scope of Information Science, oriented to educate information professionals able to act in any organizational context. (Contains 9 footnotes.)