Library Science & Librarianship

WordNet defines librarianship as "the position of librarian", while Jane Shoop (2001) demands the application of principles, which implicitly are meant to be taught in schools of Library and Information science, LIS:

"Librarianship: The application of theories, principles, and techniques to the collection, preservation, organization, and use of recorded communications. " (Shoop, 2001).

In some countries schools of LIS may have a monopoly for educating librarians, while this is not the case in other countries or in research libraries and documentation centers or information centers. Librarianship may thus be seen as the application of "library science" as taught in schools of LIS, but also broader as the practicing of any kind of library activity whether or not it is founded in specific knowledge developed within "library science".

In Germany was the first professorship in Library Science (Bibliothekswissenschaft) established in 1886 by the University of Göttingen (cf., Rohde  2003). In USA established Melvin Dewey in 1887 School of Library Economy (c.f., library economy) and a corresponding professorship. 

The designation "Library Science" was used by, for example, Pierce Butler, who authored "An Introduction to Library Science" (1933). Cronin (2004) considers the historic and contemporary import of Butler’s book, characterizes the content of each chapter and critically analyses the central theses. Relates Butler’s positivistic premises, assumptions and conclusions to the congeries of competing epistemological and ideological standpoints that defines current thinking in library and information science research. Cronin (2004, p. 187) concludes: "There is, and can be no such thing as 'library science'".

In the first half of the 20th century was S. R. Ranganathan one of the most known researchers in the field. He used both the term "Library Science" and "Documentation" in his works, mostly, however, the first (e.g., in Preface to Library Science, 1948 and The Five Laws of Library Science, 1931/ 1963).

This term has, however, largely been substituted by Library and Information Science, "LIS". In 1969 "Library Science Abstracts" thus changed its name to "Library and Information Science Abstracts". Many similar examples can be given.

It is also important to realize, that what is taught in schools of LIS is not just "Library Science" (or LIS or "theories, principles, and techniques to the collection, preservation, organization, and use of recorded communications") but also aspects of many other disciplines (cf., Hjørland, 2000):  

•   Broad cultural knowledge

•   Knowledge about the different domains communicated (e.g. music, law, medicine)

•   Knowledge about the philosophy and sociology of science.

•   Economic and administrative knowledge

•   Knowledge about specific information sources, such as databases, Internet resources, etc. 

•   Knowledge about information technology (IT)

•   Language and communication skills

The relation between librarianship on the one hand and on the other hand "Library Science" (or Library and Information Science) have, of course, been an important issue for schools of LIS. In general has the movement been from "professional schools of librarianship" over research based programs in "library science" to research based programs in Library and Information Science.

The term "Library Science" can be traced to the German "Bibliothekswissenschaft". Schrettinger (1807) is a textbook on the subject titled: "Versuch eines vollständigen Lehrbuchs der Bibliothekswissenschaft”". Schrader (1983, p. 36) has translated Schrettinger's definition of library science to English: “[Library Science encompasses] all precepts necessary to the practical organization of a library, provided that they are based on sound principles and reducible to one supreme principle . . . [namely, that] a library must be arranged in such a way as to render speedily accessible whatever books are required to fill every literary need”.

The terminology used in Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) over time says something about changes in the popularity of the term. ”Library Science” was the term used in DDC for class 020 from 15th ed. (1951) until 17th ed. (1965). This term replaced the term ”Library economy”. ”Library Science” was replaced by "Library and Information Science[s]" (LIS) in DDC for class 020 from 18th ed. (1971) and forward.

Dahl (1957-1960) is a Scandinavian handbook of librarianship in tree volumes. Its contents reflects what was conceived as important knowledge for librarianship at that time:

• Vol. 1: History of science. History of knowledge and learning. The systematics and terminology of the single sciences. History of the book.

• Vol. 2: The history of libraries and bibliophilia.

• Vol. 3: The techniques for making books. Publishing and book trade. The management of libraries and their working processes. Library buildings. Mechanical tools in the service of libraries. Cataloging and classification. Special libraries and special collections. The relations between libraries and researchers. Documentation. Bibliography.

Hansson (1999, pp. 150+263, note 71) finds that the term "Library Science" was established before systematic investigations of library processes were institutionalized and both this term and the term LIS is still often used synonymous with librarianship without implying research (which is of course an unfortunate and confusing use of terminology).

Bill Crowley (2004) writes

". . . this basis of exchange was created from understandings developed and passed on through shared, or at least related, professional experience. Since such experience was valued as a teaching tool, it was expected that library school faculty members would work as practitioners before taking higher education positions.   As a result, a valuable part of their class instruction consisted of passing on what they have learned in the "real world," supplemented by new knowledge gleaned through consulting, professional reading, attendance at conferences, and so on. Also contributing to the relative ease in faculty-practitioner communication was the reality that most "library schools" did not focus much on research and theory development but concentrated on the education of future professionals for academic, public, school, and special libraries (corporate, medical, law, and so forth).

    In a number of cases, experienced practitioners turned "library" faculty taught with only the same master's degree credential earned by practitioners. Along with research and publication, a doctorate―although valued by the employing higher education institution―was seen as being of less importance to library schools that maintained connections with the worlds of professional practice.  This situation changed with the rise of "library" PhD programs in the latter half of the twentieth century. Since research toward a dissertation is an essential part of most doctoral study, "library schools"- supporting such study generated a counterdynamic that was more in accord with university expectations and less in touch with day-to-day practitioner issues. Through the process known as "academic drift" many "library" PhDs educated at elite institutions who secured faculty appointments in less-prestigious schools brought the research and publication imperatives of their doctoral programs to their new employers" [note 49] The result was a lessening of norms shared with off-campus practitioners and a greater sense of connection with PhDs in other departments of the university.

This distancing of library educators from practitioners could and did result in significant changes in faculty perspectives. As far back as 1933, Pierce Butler-a professor at the University of Chicago's Graduate Library School (the first "library" doctoral program)-described a fundamental division between theory and practice at a time when librarianship was attempting to grow into "library science." [note 50]. Butler is scathing, if myopic, in his diagnosis of the reasons why practicing librarians do not use the results of faculty research. He declares that the librarian has a "unique immunity" to curiosity, stands alone in the "simplicity of his [or her] pragmatism," and satisfies any existing intellectual interest through rationalizing "each immediate technical process by itself." note 51]" (Crowley, 2004, p. 21-22).

One problem in establishing Library Science as a coherent field of research and teaching is that libraries are many different kinds of institutions, with widely varying purposes and means. The field is different to generalize because what is common between a small public library and a database such as MEDLINE (produced by National Library of Medicine in Washington, D.C.) are merely superficial issues. The criteria used to organize knowledge and documents are mainly domain specific.

The hybrid term Library and Information Science (LIS) is by far the most used expression today (2005). Still, however, some people and organizations consider "Library Science" and "information science" to be two different fields. Saracevic (1999), for example, argues that Library Science (or librarianship) is a field of its own. In the database Dissertation Abstracts International, for example, different descriptors exist for each field, most dissertations are today assigned to "information science":     
 

”Library Science” towards ”Information Science”: ”the fact that departments are still in existence is encouraging and name changes might give more anxiety to librarians than to information scientists”.

In conclusion:

"Library science" is a old designation for a field of study. A problem associated with this label is that core issues related to the development of library services are not specific for libraries, but may be understood as principled common for other kinds of information systems, information services or documentation as well. For example is the indexing and representation of documents in bibliographical records not unique for libraries, and most of the relevant principles used today are not developed within the library communities, but by other communities. This goes both for technical and management issues, which have been developed by, among many others computer scientists, and this goes for content oriented issues, such as knowledge organization systems, which have often been developed by subject specialists. A core qualification of librarians is thus knowledge of literatures. On the other hand are there still research questions connected with the term "library" (such as library history, library management and the social roles of libraries), which may not be covered by "information" or "documentation" labels. This may be the reason why the label LIS is preferred in many contexts.

Literature:

Audunson, R. (2002). Competing with Maurice Greene: On LIS-education in a period of rapid change; IN: S. K. Hannisdottir (ed). Global Issues in 21st Century Research Librarianship, NORDINFO, Helsinki, 354-368.

Audunson, R, Nordlie, R. & Spangen, I. C. (2003).  The complete librarian – an outdated species? LIS between profession and discipline. New Library World 104 (1189), 195-202.

Buckland, M. K. (1996). Documentation, Information Science, and Library Science in the U.S.A., Information Processing & Management, 32(1), 63-76.

Buckland, M. (2005). Information schools: A monk, library science, and the information age. IN:  Bibliothekswissenschaft – quo vadis? = Library Science – Quo vadis? Ed. by Petra Hauke. Munich: K. G. Saur, pp. 19-32. Revised, June 12, 2005. Differs slightly from published version. http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~buckland/huminfo.pdf

Buschmann, J. (1993). Information technology, power structures, and the fate of librarianship. Progressive librarian, Issue number 6/7. http://www.libr.org/PL/6-7_Buschman.html

Butler, P. (1933). An Introduction to Library Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Cronin, B. (2004). Pierce Butler’s An Introduction to Library Science: a tract for our times? A review article. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 36(4), 183-188. 

Crowley, B. (2004). Spanning the Theory-Practice Divide in Library and Information Science. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Click for table of contents.

Dahl, S. (red.). (1960). Nordisk Håndbog i Bibliotekskundskab, Bind 1-3. Udg. af Nordisk videnskabeligt Bibliotekarforbund. København: Alfred G. Hassing A/S.

Floyd, B. L. & Phillips, J. C. (1997). A question of quality: How authors and editors perceive library literature. College and Research Libraries, 58(1), s. 81-93.

Hansson, J. (1999). Klassifikation, bibliotek och samhälle : en kritisk hermeneutisk studie av ”Klassifikationssystem för svenska bibliotek". Borås: Valfrid.

Hauke, P. (2005). (Hrsg.). : Bibliothekswissenschaft – quo vadis? = Library Science – quo vadis? : Eine Disziplin zwischen Traditionen und Visionen. München: Saur.

Hildenbrand, S. (1996). Women in library history: From the politics of library history to the history of library politics. In: S. Hildenbrand (Ed.). Reclaiming the American library past: Writing the women in. Norwood: Ablex.

Hjørland, B. (2000). Library and Information Science: Practice, theory, and philosophical basis. Information Processing and Management, 36(3), 501-531.

Kaser, D. (1982). Significance, Method, and Creativity in Library Research: Developments of the Past Decade. Bookmark 51-52, 1-11.

Leyh, G.(1958). Der Bibliothekar und sein Beruf. In: Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft 2. Aufl., 2.Bd, , pp 1-112.

Milkau, F. (1926). Bibliothekswissenschaft als Universitätslehrfach. Minerva-Zeitschrift, 2,
, 27-31.

Nitecki, J. Z. (1993, 1995, 1997). The Nitecki Trilogy. Scholarly works in Philosophy of Librarianship. http://www.twu.edu/library/Nitecki/vitae.html

1: Metalibrarianship.  1993. Retrieved June 2007 from: http://www.twu.edu/library/Nitecki/metalibrarianship/index.html  2: Philosophical aspects of library information science in retrospect. 1995. Retrieved June 2007 from:  http://www.twu.edu/library/Nitecki/Aspects/contents.html 3: Philosophical ancestry of American library information science, 1997. Retrieved June 2007 from: http://www.twu.edu/library/Nitecki/ancestry/index.html

Olaisen, J. (1985). Alternative Paradigms in Library Science: The Case for Paradigmatic Tolerance and Pluralism. Libri, 35(2), 129-150.

Olausen, C. (Ed.). (2004). Utvärdering av ämnen arkivvetenskap, biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap, bok- och bibliotekshistoria, informations- och medievetenskap, kulturvård och museologi vid svenska universitet och högskolor. Stockholm: Högskoleverket.
Appendix: En historisk och kritisk belysning av ämnet biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap (B&I) med fokus på dess identitet och olika benämningar. [A Historical and Critical Examination of the Discipline Library and Information Science (LIS) with focus on its identity and different designations]. (Pp. 99-135). http://www.db.dk/jni/lifeboat/Domains/Högskoleverkets%20rapport_komplet.pdf

Rohde, R. (1999). Zur Geschichte der bibliothekswissenschaftlichen Ausbildung in Berlin. Berlin: Humbolt Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Bibliothekswissenschaft.  http://www.ib.hu-berlin.de/inf/geschbw.htm  (gedruckt; Monographieauszug).

Saracevic, T. (1999). Information Science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50(12), 1051-1063.

Schrader, A. M. (1983). Toward a Theory of Library and Information Science. Ann Arbor: University Microfilm International (2. Vols.).

Schrettinger, M. (1807): Versuch eines vollständigen Lehrbuchs der Bibliothekswissenschaft. Band 1-2. München.

Shera, J. H. (1968). Of Librarianship, Documentation and Information Science. UNESCO Bulletin for Libraries, 22(2), 58-65.

Shoop, J. [2001]. LIB 101 -- Glossary. http://web.archive.org/web/20010429064730/http://www.seattlecentral.org/faculty/jshoop/glossary.html

Vakkari, P. (1994). The roots of library science in the internal and external discourse of Historia Literaria in Germany. Bibliothek: Praxis und Forschung 18(1), 68-76.

Webber, S. (2003). Information science in 2003: a critique. Journal of Information Science, 29(4), s. 311-330.

Wiegan, W. A. (1999). The structure of Librarianship: Essay on an information profession. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 24(1), 17-37.

Wordnet 2.1. Librarianship: http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=librarianship (Accessed November 2005).

See also: Libraries; Library economy

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 16-06-2007

Home

to be edited:

Det finns intressen som verkar för ett bevarande av begreppet biblioteksforskning, och andra som verkar mot. Forskare som talar för beteckningar som dokumentations- eller informationsvetenskap istället för biblioteksvetenskap menar att grundläggande problem kring urval, beskrivning, representation, sökning och förmedling av dokument måste, i ett vetenskapligt sammanhang, först klargöras på en högre abstraktionsnivå. På denna nivå är begrepp, teorier och problem förmodligen identiska för bland annat arkiv, museer, bibliotek och databaser. Man kan dra en analogi till läkarutbildningen, som endast till en liten del är en utbildning i sjukhusens verksamhet men i långt högre grad en utbildning kring hälsa och sjukvård. På samma sätt skulle en biblioteksutbildning inte först och främst vara en utbildning i biblioteksväsendet utan i förmedlingen av dokument och information. Detta är nog den viktigaste grunden till varför först dokumentationsbegreppet och sedan informationsbegreppet vunnit mark i kampen om att få definiera forskningsfältet.

    Andra argumenterar mot det abstrakta informations- och dokumentbegreppen för att de inte förmår täcka det som ingår i biblioteksforskningen och vill istället verka för en ökad betoning av institutionsbegreppet (jfr. Hansson 2004). Audunson och Windfeld Lund (2001) är ett aktuellt exempel på folkbiblioteksforskning som betonar just biblioteksbegreppet

Till viss del kan det röra sig om att det finns en intressekonflikt mellan folkbibliotek och forskningsbibliotek gömd i denna terminologiska problematik, dvs. att forskning kring folkbibliotekens verksamhet och kontext täcks upp bättre av institutions(biblioteks)begreppet medan problemställningar som är relevanta för forskningsbibliotek ­– ex databas- och Internetforskning – lättare ryms inom det mer abstrakta informations- och dokumentbegreppet. Det hänger naturligtvis också samman med forskningsfältens inriktningar; för områden som bibliotekshistoria, biblioteksadministration eller kulturpolitik kan biblioteksvetenskap vara ett användbart begrepp, men för till exempel kunskapsorganisation, informationssökning, bibliometri o s v, är beteckningen både snäv och missvisande. (Se vidare diskussion om olika forskningsparadigm inom B&I under rubriken Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap).

 En angränsande problematik utgör ämnets förhållande till det professionella fältet, dvs. om ämnet borde orientera sig mer mot de mindre praxisanknutna och mer akademiska fält, som humaniora och samhällsvetenskap ofta anses vara, eller fortsatt vara tätt knutet till sitt praxisfält. Svaret på den frågan borde vara av vikt för vad som anses vara ämnets kärna. Det finns hursomhelst alltid en spänning mellan profession och ämne som är central för ämnets identitet. Audunson (2002) och Audunson, Nordlie och Spangen (2003) diskuterar biblioteksutbildningen med utgångspunkt i konflikten mellan en professions- och en ämnesutbildning.