Nathan Rinne said:
"Meanwhile the 'IS' in the LIS is not necessarily opposed to that past
tradition, history, wisdom, but also puts a great premium on pushing the
boundaries, trying new things, being somewhat iconoclastic, etc - trying
new ways to progress, make things better, more effective, efficient,
etc."
I'm not sure Nathan fully "gets" The "LS vs IS" dynamic that Edward Corrado mentions.
If LIS schools were "pushing the boundaries, trying new things, being somewhat iconoclastic" and "trying new ways to progress, make things better, more effective, efficient, etc." in the pursuit of improving libraries and librarianship, I'd be all for that.
But they're not, or at least they don't seem to be. In one sense, LIS schools seem to be slowly losing their organizational memory of librarianship, especially those LIS schools that started the "iSchool" movement (http://www.ischools.org/). As older faculty with "LS" backgrounds retire, they appear to be replaced by folks with "IS" backgrounds, people who don't have much significant knowledge of what libraries are about.
LIS schools, especially those with an "iSchool" slant, seem to be less and less about librarianship as time passes. That's what has people concerned.
That's why I said "Where ARE the LIS schools in this discussion??" It was largely a rhetorical question...for the most part they seem to be interested in other things...things more "glamorous" than libraries.
Bernie Sloan
--- On Thu, 3/12/09, Rinne, Nathan (ESC) <RinneN_at_DISTRICT279.ORG> wrote:
From: Rinne, Nathan (ESC) <RinneN_at_DISTRICT279.ORG>
Subject: [NGC4LIB] The "L" and "IS" in LIS - was "Three years of NGC4LIB - reflections?"
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Date: Thursday, March 12, 2009, 10:01 AM
Hello all,
I think that Edward's point is instructive here, and I'd like to build
off of it. James Weinheimer, I think, embodies fairly well, what
traditional librarianship (the "L" in LIS) as an academic discipline
has
to offer. He treasures the history and traditions of the past even as
he tries to bring them into fresh expression in the current context.
Meanwhile the "IS" in the LIS is not necessarily opposed to that past
tradition, history, wisdom, but also puts a great premium on pushing the
boundaries, trying new things, being somewhat iconoclastic, etc - trying
new ways to progress, make things better, more effective, efficient,
etc.
As I said to someone recently regarding "LIS":
"Can some one really be gung-ho humanities (with all the respect for
tradition that this involves) and gung-ho science and technology (with
its "question everything, change everything" mantra)?"
It seems to me that, incredibly, library land is a pretty amazing mix of
both... but those who can hold the tension together in a highly
intelligent practice (like Jim) are few and far between. It's even
harder to find someone who can politically lead (perhaps like Tim).
Ross Singer said:
"I guess the question that comes up in my mind again and again to this
issue is, 'where are the library schools in all this'...Where is the
research and the scholarship and the experimentation and the
proofs-of-concept from the academy that can be applied to the real world
environments?"
To which Bernie Sloan replies:
"I thing Ross raises a DAMN good question here. Where ARE the LIS
schools in this discussion??"
I think what is so hard is that when we talk about "experimentation and
proofs-of-concept" here, many are (likely) basically thinking about not
only new technologies but also about social science, which, imitating
what was previously well-known as the "hard sciences", is often
understood as being responsible for accurately representing what "is"
(so that we can make good adjustments). On the other hand, there is
also the tradition of the humanities, while not dismissing the
importance of social science and what it can accomplish, is also deeply
immersed in the study of history, politics, philosophy, and literature
(i.e. how should we live, what is the good life) and is therefore
concerned, among other things, to emphasize not "is" but
"ought". Here,
there is also a skepticism about the good scientific methods can
accomplish when practiced apart from a deep "liberal arts" basis, and
a
corresponding fear of applying them to widely (as they and the powerful
controls they offer encroach into more and more of our life) Yes,
measuring and describing this and that thing is important for this or
that purpose, but true reason, rationality, wisdom - these folks tell us
- goes far deeper than that, and does not reduce everything to these
things - but rather goes deeply into the realm of what it means to be
human (and all the great questions that go along with that).
I submit that this is what is present in the critiques of the "IS" in
LIS, from folks like Thomas Mann and Andrew Abbot (a social scientist
who respects the humanities greatly) that is so compelling on the one
hand, but seems so antithetical to the current directions and purposes
of LIS today (not to mention the rest of the world) on the other.
Further, this is not to say that there is no use for thinking which
allows notions/ideas to "acquire the power to affect the real world -
only after analysis, synthesis, comparison, evaluation. After being
thought through, carefully and rigorously" (Robert McHenry), but rather
that thinking of this kind must first of all be tethered by, and seen in
light of concerns of history, philosophy, politics, literature - and
what those tell us about what it means to be human, and second, it must
be recognized that this kind of thinking is not the only kind which is
associated with knowledge and causes it to grow. There is also
personal, relational knowledge, founded on trust.
This is not to say that there is no hope for a great synthesis. Surely,
social science can be put to appropriate uses in library land as it
seeks to make good "library scientists". But what I have said above
may
indicate why they may find it very, very difficult to be motivated to do
so.
~Nathan
Received on Tue Mar 17 2009 - 13:43:27 EDT