Unifying Frameworks for Library and Information Science: An Analysis of Three Perspectives

Abstract

This article argues that there are emerging new roles for academic librarians and that a more focused discussion on the theoretical foundations of Library and Information Science (LIS) will provide guidance for both the discipline and the profession. The analysis herein examines a possible theoretical foundation or framework for LIS from three perspectives: the philosophy of information, social epistemology, and cybersemiotics. The primary advocates of these three perspectives are L. Floridi, J. Shera, and S. Brier respectively. This analysis addresses three questions: how does each perspective view LIS?, can the perspectives clarify the relationship between librarianship and information science, and can one of these perspectives suggest how the profession of academic librarianship should transform itself to meet the demands of the scholar in the 21 century? The analysis will proceed along four dimensions: a) knowledge and information, b) the focus on society and the individual, c) the meaning and structure of information, and d) how a unifying framework of LIS might deal with the practice of librarianship. Introduction In the 21 century, academic librarians will be called on to undertake quite different roles in managing knowledge and the flow of information. A few short years ago, Buckland (1988) suggested that a primary function of libraries was to provide access to books. With the onset of mass digitization, there is certainly cause to reevaluate this assumption. We are in the midst of a technological revolution, perhaps as profound as the revolution resulting from the invention of the printing press. This paper suggests that there are emerging new roles which academic librarians should undertake, and these roles can be situated in a general theoretical model which