DOCUMENT RESUME AUTHOR Philosophical Ancestry of the American Library Information 259p

261 Pages·2012·2.4 MB·English

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 406 977
IR 056 339
AUTHOR
Nitecki, Joseph Z.
TITLE
Philosophical Ancestry of the American Library Information
Science.
PUB DATE
Apr 97
NOTE
259p.; For related documents, see ED 363 346 and ED 381 162.
PUB TYPE
Information Analyses (070)
Reports - Research (143)
EDRS PRICE
MF01/PC11 Plus Postage.
DESCRIPTORS
*Citations (References); *Information Science; *Keywords;
Librarians; *Library Science; Meta Analysis; *Philosophy
IDENTIFIERS
*Library Literature; Philosophers; Philosophical Research
ABSTRACT
This work supplements a previous work, "Philosophical
Aspects of Library Information Science in Retrospect." It explores Library
Information Science, which deals with the facilitation of recorded knowledge,
the metalibrarianship encompassing the theoretical aspects of a broad range
of recorded communications, and the philosophies thereof. This essay
identifies relationships between published librarians interested in
philosophical aspects of the field and their philosophical "mentors."
Philosophers cited by librarians are identified and their major contributions
to philosophy are briefly summarized. The impact of cited philosophers on the
philosophy of Library Information Science is inferred from the comments made
by citing librarians. The study draws keywords from librarians' comments,
earmarks them as representative of certain philosophical concepts, and
examines how frequently they appear. This examination fuels consideration of
various relationships between philosophers and their views, ways terminology
is interpreted, and theoretical background of Library Information. Appendices
contain:
(1) profiles of cited philosophers;
(2) major philosophical systems;
(3) major key words;
(4) frequency of key words citations; and (5) analysis
of the most frequently cited words. (Contains 242 references.)
(AEF)
********************************************************************************
Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
from the original document.
********************************************************************************
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Office of Educational Research and Improvement
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION
CENTER (ERIC)
This document has been reproduced as
received from the person or organization
originating it.
Minor changes have been made to
improve reproduction quality.
S
CN
Points of view or opinions stated in this
()
document do not necessarily represent
official OERI position or policy.
C)
PHILOSOPHICAL ANCESTRY
OF
THE AMERICAN LIBRARY
INFORMATION
SCIENCE
by
Joseph Z. Nitecki
1997
BEST COPY AVAILABLE
"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS
MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
Joseph Z. Nitecki
TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."
ABSTRACT
This is a supplement to the compilation of
essays
in the philosophy of the American librarianship (Nitecki,
1995). Each philosopher mentioned in that compilation is
discussed separately in Part II of this essay, with brief
description of his viewpoints, comments about him and the
relevance of his philosophy to librarianship.
The impact of the listed philosophers on the philosophy
of librarianship is inferred from the statements made about
them by persons citing them. Each selected statement is
abbreviated with its first word considered
a key word for
the subject addressed. Various relationships between the
philosophers, their views, key words and levels of their
interpretations are described in the appendixes to this
study.
1
CONTENTS
The Analysis
Part I.
1. Introduction
2. Methodology
3. Perceived Heritage
a. Profiles of Philosophers
b. Major Philosophical Systems
c. Philosophical Issues
d. Key words as Indicators of Philosophical
subjects
e, Most Frequently Cited Data
f. Significance of Most Frequently Cited Data
Bibliographical Distribution
4.
5. The Nature of Emerging Pattern
6. Major Characteristics of Library Information
Science
Philosophical Tradition.
The Progenitors
Part II.
Appendixes.
Part III.
1: Profiles of Cited Philosophers
A. Philosophers Characteristics
Schools of Philosophy
B .
2: Major Philosophical Systems
A. Synopsis
Examples of Contrasting Interpretations
B .
of Some Philosophical Concepts
3: Major Key Words
4: Frequency of Key Words Citations
5: Analyzes of Most Frequently Cited Key Words
A. Most Frequently Used Key Words
Key Words related to Cited Philosophers
B .
C. Summary of Key Words Arranged by Date
D. Levels of Cited Key Words
E. List of Key Words Cited by Selected
Librarians
F. Summary of Key Words Cited by Selected
Librarians
Bibliography
Part IV.
4
2
PART I: THE ANALYSIS
1. Introduction.
Bibliothecal communication always takes place between past
recorded knowledge and its present recipients. It relates to the
processes, both physical and cultural, which to some extend made
each of us individually, and all of us together, what we are. To
understand ourselves and the world around us, we communicate with
experiences of others through available records. Library
information science deals with facilitation of recorded
knowledge, the metalibrarianship encompassing the theoretical
aspects of a broad range of recorded communications, and the
philosophy of metalibrarianship searches for the meaning, the
nature and values of such communication.
This essay attempts to identify some relationships between
individuals interested in philosophical aspects of Library
Information Science (LIS) and their philosophical mentors.
2. Methodology.
The study is based on the thorough review of all essays in
English language, listed in the Library Literature under
'Librarianship, Philosophical Aspects' in J. Z. Nitecki:
Philosophical Aspects of LIS in Retrospect, 1995.1
The total literature in American philosophy of librarianship
is small, hence the citations are relatively few; however, within
that small sample there are some interesting relations. Although
this type of study does not lend itself to the rigor of the
3
scientific analysis, some numerical relations between the kinds
of philosophers cited, their profiles, and the topics identified
by the citations may suggest interesting patterns within the
discipline.
Limitations of the analyses are determined by the degree of
subjectivity in formulating, classifying and interpreting data.
The scope of the study is well defined, statistical descriptions
are simple and obvious but the selection of key words and
designations of their interpretative levels are of necessity
subjective. The study includes all individuals who are identified
as philosophers in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, although not
all are also listed in either of the philosophical dictionaries
consulted. The criteria for selecting the key words were
determined by the actual context of the domain studied, i.e.,
they refer to the summaries provided in the second part of this
study only, not necessarily reflecting major philosophical
concepts of cited philosophers.
The impact of philosophers on LIS is inferred from the
examination of key words in the summaries of the philosophers
viewpoints listed in appendixes. They provide numerical analysis
of relationships between philosophers, their profiles and impact
on librarians who cited them. The study identified 503 keywords
referred to ninety-four philosophers cited by 154 authors in the
225 essays published in library literature on the subject of
library philosophy.2
In Part II of this study the philosophers cited by librarians
were identified and their major contributions to philosophy
6
4
briefly summarized. The individual entries consist of paraphrased
extracts from The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a handbook (Avey,
1954) and two dictionaries (Angels, 1992 and Runes, 1981). The
impact of cited philosophers on the philosophy of LIS is inferred
from the comments made about each philosopher by citing
librarians. The annotations vary in scope. Some references relate
cited philosophers directly to the issues in philosophy of
library information science, others are mere casual notes or
quotes, indicating librarian's familiarity with a given
philosopher.
Appendixes contain numerical descriptions of various
relationships between the philosophers, their profiles, key words
expressing their philosophical views and the authors citing them
in American library literature.
Appendix-1 contains (1) the list of philosophers cited by
librarians, arranged in alphabetical order with a note about the
period, nationality of each philosopher and his major school
affiliation. It also included numerical summary of nationalities,
cited schools of philosophy, and their rank order (Appx-la).
Appx-2: This appendix list all philosophical schools of
philosophy and the philosophers affiliated with them (Table 1).
It also includes some philosophers that are not reviewed in this
study, but who are important representatives of particular
schools. The appendix also includes examples of contrasting
interpretations of some major philosophical concepts (Table 2).
The list is arranged in two columns: first represents conceptual,
frequently metaphysical, definitions, the second the
5
experiential, mostly epistemological, interpretations. Following
each pair of concepts is a brief note about its possible
equivalence in philosophy of metalibrarianship ('M').
Appendix-3 consists of primary data on which all the
statistical descriptions of this study are based. It lists
sequentially all philosophers cited in this study arranged by
periods, followed by abbreviated key words and levels of their
interpretations by quoted librarians.
Column (a) refers to the philosophers listed by name in
Appendix 4. Column (b) contains the brief summary of the major
themes of each philosopher, identified by librarians. The first
word in the summary is a key word standing for the subject matter
of the comment. It is followed by the symbol designating the
'=' stands for the
nature of the description of the word:
definition of the concept, its meaning or essence, often
metaphysical (conceptual level, Co, described below); '>'relates
to the characteristics of the key words such as their origin,
nature or environment, predominantly epistemological (contextual
level, Cx); '<"represents the variables that affect the key word
by changing or modifying its characteristics through processes or
value-laden ethical (procedural level,
procedures, frequently
'-' indicate the critical comment made by the librarian
Pd);
about a particular philosophical statement.
The table is divided into four periods: (1) Antiquity, from
Heraclitus (number 1 in the table) to Sextus (number 11); (2) the
Thirteen to the Nineteen century (from #12 Aquinas to # 39
Laplace); (3) Nineteen to the Twentieth century (from #40 Comte
6
to #62 Whitehead; and (4) Twentieth century (from #63 Adler to
#94 Wittgenstein). The names of individuals born at the
borderlines between the periods were moved to the next one.
The last column contains the codes for levels of citations
(Co, Cx, Pd, CR) and the letters of the most frequently cited
librarians (MFCL).
To limit the subjectivity in assigning the levels of citations,
the following criteria were used: (a) Individual citations were
reviewed in terms of the philosopher's level of interpretation of
a particular concept or issue, as perceived by the citing
librarian. (b) The questions asked in selecting the level were:
for Conceptual level 'what is 'x', the concept or event; for
Contextual level 'why x is so'; and for Procedural level 'how x
becomes what it is at the moment'.
The most frequently cited contributors to the philosophy of
librarianship were identified in Nitecki (1995) study. They
included the following individuals with frequency of citations to
them indicated in brackets: librarians Foskett (10), Nitecki
(18), Shera (51), Wright (13) and economist Machlup (9), all
identified in this study as most frequently cited librarians
(MFCL). The list in original study also included Butler (27),
Ranganathan (24), Shannon (21), M.Dewey (20), Broadfield (12) and
Fairthorne (9). None of these individuals (with the exception of
Fairthorne who cited only one philosopher) referred to any
philosophers in Nitecki (1995) study, hence are excluded from the
present review.
9
7
Appx-4: This table summarized the frequency of cited key words.
The total number of key words assigned to each philosopher is
classified by the level of librarians' interpretation (Co, Cx,
Pd, CR), further subdivided by the number of total key words that
were specifically cited by the most frequently cited librarians
N, 5, W).
(F, M,
Appx-5: The series of tables in this appendix summarize
numerically different aspects of the impact of the selected
philosophers on the development of American philosophy of
librarianship. The content of this appendix is extracted from
Appendix 4. It includes: (a) a list of 14 most frequently cited
key words. The first column refers to the philosophers cited, the
second lists the key words and the last column indicates the
level of interpretation (Appx-5a). (b) This table rearranges the
number of individual key words by the five most frequently cited
philosophers (from Popper to J. Dewey), the total number of
citations to other philosophers and the grand total of all
citations of a particular key word (Appx-5b).
In the next four tables of that appendix, the most frequently
cited key words are rearranged by different components: (1) by
the four main historical periods (Appx-5c) and (2) by the levels
of citations (Appx-5d). (3) This table lists all key words cited
by the five selected librarians; the references to a philosopher
are shown in the first column, an abbreviated key word in the
second and the level of citation in the third column (Appx-5e).
(4) The last table lists the total number of citations to the