Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the literature on concept theory in library and information science (LIS) from an epistemological perspective, ascribing each paper to an epistemological family and discussing their relevance in the context of the knowledge organization (KO) domain.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts a hermeneutic approach for the analysis of the texts that compose the corpus of study following contingency and categorical analyses. More specifically, the paper works with Bardin’s contingency analysis and follows Hjørland’s families of epistemologies for the categorization.FindingsThe analysis corroborates the observations made for the last ten years about the scarcity of studies on concept theory in LIS and KO. However, the study also reveals an epistemological turn on concept theory since 2009 that could be considered a departure from the rationalist views that dominated the field and a continuation of a broader paradigm shift in LIS and KO. All analyzed papers except two follow pragmatist or historicist approaches.Originality/valueThis paper follows-up and systematizes the contributions to the LIS and KO fields on concept theory mainly during the last decade. The epistemological analysis reveals the dominant views in this paradigm shift and the main authors and trends that are present in the LIS literature on concept theory.
Highlights
The organization of concepts and the development of knowledge organization systems (KOS) cannot be dissociated from the historical aspects and the pragmatist values that affect the epistemology of the library and information science (LIS) field
In our contingency analysis we identified eight papers that clearly deal with concept theory in line with Dahlberg’s proposal
Our epistemological analysis of the literature has corroborated the scarcity of studies on concept theory in LIS and KO, something that had been already detected ten years ago by Hjørland (2009)
Summary
The organization of concepts and the development of knowledge organization systems (KOS) cannot be dissociated from the historical aspects and the pragmatist values that affect the epistemology of the library and information science (LIS) field. We understand KOS as “a generic term used for referring to a wide range of items (e.g. subject headings, thesauri, classification schemes and ontologies), which have been conceived with respect to different purposes, in distinct historical moments. They are characterized by different specific structures and functions, varied ways of relating to technology, and used in a plurality of contexts by diverse communities” (Mazzocchi, 2018). KOS should be understood as systems that organize concepts and their semantic relations (Hjørland, 2009) In this vein, any concept theory would be framed within one of the following four epistemological “families:” rationalism, empiricism, historicism, or pragmatism (Hjørland, 1998, 2003, 2005, 2009, 2017a). Concept theories would rely on the induction of concepts from
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