Knowledge Structures Review

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Knowledge StructuresReview
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The (Big) Why?
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The (Big) Why?

• LIS education entered this Western
  post-Enlightenment web of shifting
• forces on January 5, 1887, right in the middle of
  an era when a
• generation of pioneers were setting the
  jurisdictional boundaries of other
• professions like law, medicine, engineering,
  education, and
• psychology, all of which--like librarianship--want
  ed to attach their
• professional programs to institutions of higher
  education, and especially
• those institutions transitioning from a
  classical college into a research
• university
• (Wayne Wiegand, Core Curriculum A White Paper)
  www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html)

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The (Big) Why?

• Two functionalities of librarianship established
  with the establishment of
• the first library program at Columbia, by Melvil
  Dewey, on 5 January
• 1887 were institution and expertise.
• Institution how best to function as librarians
  how to run the institution and what expertise was
  necessary to select and organize its information
  resources and exploit them most efficiently for
  the benefit of the public inculcating the
  library spirit, an attitude about library use
  and access to collections that distinguished
  Deweys from previous generations of librarians
  who were more concerned with security and
  preservation.
• Expertise practical professional matters like
  cataloging and classification, book selecting
  procedures, circulation methods, management of
  the library institution
• (Wayne Wiegand, Core Curriculum A White Paper)
  www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html)

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The (Big) Why?

• The expertise would help the future professionals
  acquire, organize, and
• make accessible the quality literature and
  reliable information the
• institution would house.
• Institution the professionals character is a
  key upholding the institutional aspect of
  librarianship
• Expertise to increase efficiency, production,
  and social control
• 1951 ALA Standards accredited only those library
  school programs that
• led to a masters degree, the goal of recruiting
  people of character into
• the profession did not significantly change from
  1887. Aspirants to the
• Profession had to have a liberal arts
  undergraduate degree as basis for
• entering the professional program which then
  concentrated on developing
• professional expertise and institutional
  management skills.
• (Wayne Wiegand, Core Curriculum A White Paper)
  www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html)

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The (Big) Why?

• Sociologist Paul Starr (1983) argues that the
  authority professions
• exercise derives from the power the dominant
  culture allocates to certain
• professional groups -- scientists, intellectuals,
  belles letters authors, and
• disciplinary experts in the academy -- to
  identify not only the quality
• information within their areas of authority, but
  also to define the canons
• against which any new information ought to be
  judged. These authorities,
• Starr argues, determine which objects of cultural
  and intellectual authority
• contain particular definitions of reality and
  judgements of meaning and
• value that are considered valid and true. These
  objects are then collected
• and made available in a variety of institutional
  settings to all members of
• society for their own benefit. (Notice how nicely
  this line of logic fits
• Foucaults perception of the post-Enlightenment
  dominant cultures
• ceaseless efforts to increase efficiency,
  production and social control.)
• (Wayne Wiegand, Core Curriculum A White Paper)
  www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html)

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The (Big) Why?

• Unique professional responsibility of the
  profession has been information handling (ways to
  acquire, organize, preserve and circulate certain
  approved or legitimated kinds of information, no
  matter their textual format). From 1887 to 1999
  (in 112 years) billions of people have benefited
  from the professional practice grounded on this
  core).
• The authority to determine the value of the
  information objects of librarians and other
  information specialists is dangerous, because of
  possible cultural myopia that makes librarians
  (in varying degrees) succumb to tunnel vision and
  blind spots along lines of gender, age, class,
  and sexual orientation (among many others)
• Blind spots visible in problems with information
  handling processes (homophobic LC subject
  headings, Eurocentric nature of DDC)
• (Wayne Wiegand, Core Curriculum A White Paper)
  www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html)

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The (Big) Why?

• To avoid these problems, librarians must not lose
  sight of the broader context that embraces both
  the institution and expertise and the
  character and authority on which it is
  grounded
• People of both genders, all classes, ages,
  ethnicities, creeds and sexual orientations need
  to have multiple information environments
  grounded on multiple character and authority
  bases that may have or not been well served by
  the information handling processes that are
  privileged and followed the lead of the
  evangelists of information technology who see a
  particular future as a certainty
• Technologies touted by certain authorities
  necessarily lead to tunnel vision and blind spots
• (Wayne Wiegand, Core Curriculum A White Paper)
  www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html)

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The Why of Knowledge Structures?

• De-programming of the tunnel vision which is
  based on lack of understanding of the broader
  context of how knowledge is created as it
  encounters the information handling processes is
  needed by librarians in building multiple
  information environments grounded on multiple
  character and authority bases
• Why librarians (information professionals getting
  their credentials from ALA-accredited programs)?
  Because librarianship can be seen as organized
  political interest, also because librarians are
  engaged with information handling as core of
  their professional expertise

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The Why of Knowledge Structures?

• The course focuses on knowledge structures
  (rather than information processes) from 3
  perspectives
• (1) how knowledge establishes a particular moral
  order (legitimate discourses and invisible
  voices, monsters and outsiders)
• cultural myopias and common sense
• historical knowledge systems (epistemes)
• colonial discourses
• knowledge that is circulated in institutional
  contexts
• knowledge as local experience
• (2) scientific communities that are involved in
  the production of knowledge
• (3) memory institutions that shape the societys
  memories

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Organization of the Course
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Knowledge Structures and Moral Order

• Intellectual Origins of Knowledge Systems
• Knowledge and Power
• Knowledge and Experience
• Knowledge and Practice
• Multicultural Perspectives Deconstructing
  Orientalism
• Historical Perspectives Deconstructing the
  Englightenment

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Knowledge Domains and Communities of Practice

• Science Technology
• Social Sciences
• Arts Humanities
• Popular Culture
• Information Work Professionalization
• Information Work Process Practice in
  Organizational Contexts

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Knowledge and Memory

• Organizational Memory and Organizational
  Forgetting
• Memory Institutions Museums, Archives,
  Libraries, Digital Libraries
• Representational Infrastructures
• Lifecycles Artefacts, Documents

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The Course Objectives

• Comparing and contrasting diverse knowledge
  systems and understanding their participation in
  framing social worlds, moral codes, and practice
• Examination of knowledge systems from a
  historical and multicultural perspective
• Examination of the role of contemporary library
  and information agencies in providing access to
  knowledge systems through information
  infrastructures and the role of information
  professionals
• Examination of scholarly communication and of one
  knowledge domain and a scholarly journal related
  to that area in depth

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The Course Objectives

• Examination of students' own epistemological
  positions and evaluation of how these may affect
  their contribution to knowledge production in
  building information infrastructures (selection
  of materials, providing access to materials in
  the context of information agencies)
• Examination of historical artefacts in the
  context of production, dissemination, and
  consumption of knowledge
• Evaluation of representational systems and
  organizational schemes for access of knowledge
  artefacts in a variety of settings, with an
  emphasis on the traditional context of
  information work in libraries, archives, and
  museums