In Search of Library Philosophy

CAPAL-ACBAP 2017 Professional Practice and Values 1: Philosophical Explorations

31 May, 2017

Sandra Cowan, M.Phil., MLISUniversity of Lethbridge Library

Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

“An expressed concern in librarianship is survival. While

this concern is legitimate in the sense that those external to

the field must have an understanding of our purpose, a

more central element is self-understanding of our purpose.”

(Budd, 1995, p. 315)

Alberta Canola https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C_EzhBxUAAEy1-t.jpg

https://www.flickr.com/photos/photo-twister/2676326824

Library Philosophy

• WHY?

• Theoretical

• Meaning

• Values

• Reflective

• Analytical

• Essential Principles

Library Science/Practice

• HOW?

• Pragmatic

• Technical

• Applied

• Technique/activity focus

• Empirical

• Instrumental

Cossette, Andre. (1976). Humanism and Libraries: An Essay on the Philosophy of Librarianship.

Cossette, Andre. (1976). Humanism and Libraries: An Essay on

the Philosophy of Librarianship. Translated by Rory Litwin,

2009. Duluth, MN: Library Juice Press.

“[Academic libraries] are products of the Enlightenment and its

promotion of reason and freedom. The pursuit of knowledge

for its own sake wherever it might lead, the examination of

every possible topic in the light of reason, and the freedom to

publish that research to the world – the underlying principles

of modern universities – led to the inevitable creation of

libraries capable of supporting those goals.”

(Bivens-Tatum, 2011, p. 91)

Bivens-Tatum, Wayne. (2011). Libraries and the Enlightenment. Los Angeles, CA:

Library Juice Press.

“This vision of libraries as secondary institutions with the

principle role of ‘service’ has considerably retarded the

development of library science, because it has placed theory –

the principles and knowledge base of the discipline outside of

professional practice – in a region outside the sphere of

influence of librarians themselves.”

(Cossette, 1976, p. 39)

“The bewildered groping which characterizes so much of our

activity is largely the result of lack of a definite conception of

our purposes. Not only that, but we can scarcely expect

society to think of the library in terms of its own constituent

elements until we have made some progress in defining what

the library’s ends are or should be.”

(Danton, 1934, p. 545)

Radford, Gary P., & Budd, John M. (1997). We do need a

philosophy of library and information science—We’re not

confused enough: A response to Zwadlo. The Library Quarterly,

67(3), 315-321.

Zwadlo, Jim. (1997). We don’t need a philosophy of library and

information science: We’re confused enough already. The

Library Quarterly, 67(2), 103-121.

Zwadlo, Jim. (1998). Comment. The

Library Quarterly, 68(1), 114-117.

“One of the problems with positivism in the social sciences in

general and LIS in particular, is that its functioning as an

epistemological foundation has not been recognized. It has

remained latent, assumed, and taken for granted, and, as such,

has not been subjected to much critical scrutiny.”

(Radford & Budd, 1997, p.318)

PositivismSocial

Epistemology

Philosophy of Information

Hermeneutical Phenomenology

Positivism

• The belief in and the quest for

objectivity and certainty, the ultimate

authority of science and its methods,

and the rejection of the metaphysical

• The conviction that knowledge in all

disciplines depends on the empirical

methods of natural science, which will

lead to objective knowledge

• Generalizing the results of empirical

research will reveal the general laws or

rules that exist but are obscure

(summarized from the work of John Budd)

Social Epistemology

“The study of those processes by which

society as a whole seeks to achieve a

perceptive or understanding relation to the

total environment—physical, psychological,

and intellectual.”

(Margaret Egan & Jesse Shera, 1952, p. 132)

Hermeneutical Phenomenology

“Provides us with a way to see ourselves

and our actions that will enable us to

understand these actions and ourselves.

Or, stated another way, it gives us a

means to gain knowledge….a way to

investigate reality.”

(John Budd. 2002, p. 288)

“The philosophical area that studies

the conceptual nature of information,

its dynamics and problems.”

(Luciano Floridi, 2002, p. 38)

Philosophy of Information

Philosophy

Why?

Practice

How?

Praxis“the critical, rational, interpretive, epistemic, and ethical

work of a discipline or profession.”

(Budd, 2003, p. 20)

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Thank you!

ReferencesAlkan, Nazli. (2008). The importance and influence of philosophical thinking for

librarians. Library Philosophy and Practice. Paper 207. Retrieved from:

digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/207

Bivens-Tatum, Wayne. (2011). Libraries and the Enlightenment. Los Angeles, CA: Library

Juice Press.

Budd, John M. (1995). An epistemological foundation for library and information science.

The Library Quarterly, 65(3), 295-318.

Budd, John M. (2001). Knowledge and Knowing in Library and Information Science: A

Philosophical Framework. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press.

Budd, John M. (2003). The library, praxis, and symbolic power. The Library Quarterly,

73(1), 19-32.

Budd, John M. (2002). Jesse Shera, social epistemology and praxis. Social Epistemology

16(1), 93-98.

Budd, John M. (2005). Phenomenology and information studies. Journal of

Documentation, 61(1), 44-59.

Buschman, John. (2006). “The integrity and obstinacy of intellectual creations”: Jurgen

Habermas and librarianship’s theoretical literature. The Library Quarterly, 76(3),

270-299.

Buschman, John. (2007). Transgression or stasis? Challenging Foucault in LIS Theory. The

Library Quarterly, 77(1), 21-44.

Cossette, Andre. (1976). Humanism and Libraries: An Essay on the Philosophy of

Librarianship. Translated by Rory Litwin, 2009. Duluth, MN: Library Juice Press.

Danton, J. Periam. (1934). Plea for a philosophy of librarianship: Philosophia vero omnium mater atrium. The Library Quarterly, 4(4), 527-551.

Egan, Margaret E., & Shera, Jesse H. (1952). Foundations of a theory of bibliography. The Library Quarterly, 22(2), 125-137.

Fallis, Don. (2002). Introduction: Social epistemology and information science. Social Epistemology, 16(1), 1-4.

Floridi, Luciano. (2002). On defining library and information science as applied philosophy of information. Social Epistemology, 16(1), 37-49.

Ford, Emily. (2012). What do we do and why do we do it? In the Library with a Lead Pipe. Retrieved from: www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2012/what-do-we-do-and-why-do-we-do-it

Furner, Jonathan. (2010). Philosophy and information science. Annual Review of Science and Technology, 44(1), 159-200.

Fyffe, Richard. (2015). The value of information: Normativity, epistemology, and LIS in Luciano Floridi. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 15(2), 267-286.

Radford, Gary P. (1992). Positivism, Foucault, and the fantasia of the library: Conceptions of knowledge and the modern library experience. The Library Quarterly, 62(4), 408-424.

Radford, Gary P., & Budd, John M. (1997). We do need a philosophy of library and information science—We’re not confused enough: A response to Zwadlo. The Library Quarterly, 67(3), 315-321.

Tkach, David. (2017). The situatedness of the seeker: Toward a Heideggerian understanding of information seeking. Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship, 2, 27-41.

Zalta, E.N., ed. (2016). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from:

https://plato.stanford.edu/

Zwadlo, Jim. (1997). We don’t need a philosophy of library and information science: We’re

confused enough already. The Library Quarterly, 67(2), 103-121.

Zwadlo, Jim. (1998). Comment. The Library Quarterly, 68(1), 114-117.