Knowledge and Knowing in Library and Information Science: A Philosophical Framework

Citation

Hjørland, B. (2004), "Knowledge and Knowing in Library and Information Science: A Philosophical Framework", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 60 No. 1, pp. 94-96. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410410516680

This reviewer has, in several publications, advocated a strengthening of the connection between Library and Information Science (LIS) and epistemology (e.g. Hjørland, 2000, 2002). This is an extremely important, yet neglected field. The only previous attempt to write an introduction about the nature of knowledge for librarians, that I am aware of, is that of Kemp (1976). This is both strange and unfortunate since library and information science is about the management of knowledge.

The book under review attempts to do two things. It tries to introduce important theories, traditions and positions in the investigation about the nature of knowledge. It also tries to relate those views on knowledge to problems in LIS. It relates both to specific problems such as investigations on relevance and to general questions concerning the nature of LIS as a field of investigation. The book contains seven chapters. Chapter 1 investigates modern science from enlightenment beginning with Francis Bacon. Chapter 2 continues this “investigation of our intellectual heritage, or genealogy, by focusing on the late eighteenth century and the nineteenth century”. Chapter 3 focuses on the issue “What is real? Science and the ideas of reality”. Chapter 4 is titled “False starts and dead ends for social science and LIS”. It consists of a number of examples of problematic research efforts aimed at illustrating the importance of a proper philosophical perspective. Chapter 5 is titled “Knowledge and knowing in LIS” (but is in reality dominated by more general philosophical introductions). Chapter 6, “Paths to knowledge” is about phenomenology and hermeneutics as the authors preferred approaches. Finally, Chapter 7, “Products and possibilities in LIS” is partly a discussion of some works in LIS (including works about relevance and works written by Nicholas Belkin and by the reviewer).

The most important thing about this book is that it is written, that it signals and argues that the study of knowledge is important for LIS and that a specific text written about knowledge written especially for LIS finally exists. It is my hope that the book signals an increase in interest in epistemology and that it stimulates that interest further.

When this is said, no text can cover all needed material. It is important somehow to systematize what is needed for the further advancement of knowledge in LIS. While this book provides a well‐balanced introduction to many traditions, there is clearly a need of more encyclopaedic introductions to all the labels, one encounter in the literature. Postmodernism, for example, is not mentioned in the index, but that is a concept that is used in LIS (e.g. Miksa, 1998). I have found encyclopaedias such as Craig and Floridi (1998) extremely helpful as supplementary readings. It can be a rather complicated task to find out what a specific term, such as positivism means. It is relatively simple to outline the history of the movement using this label. It is quite another thing to interpret and generalize the experiences done and to use that knowledge in specific research problems in, for example LIS. How to define such terms is itself an epistemological problem. Besides knowing the historical use, one needs to compare the assumptions and implications systematically. In the end, the use of terms is a kind of linguist act, and the meaning of the terms should be adjusted to goals implicit in the projects one is involved in (this is a consequence of the pragmatic view of knowledge).

Another important job is to uncover the explicit as well as implicit philosophical assumptions in LIS. The book under review does this only sporadically. There is no survey of the influences of different epistemologies in LIS (such as empiricism, rationalism, historicism, postmodernism and hermeneutics). I try to do so in my own work, and I am surprised that Budd does not comment on that (or try to develop that analysis further). Actually, I often found that Budd should have connected his expositions more to problems in LIS. Skinner's behaviourism is, for example, criticized on pp. 158‐163. Behaviourism is, however, much broader than Skinner's version. In fact, it is an extremely influential view, which, in my opinion is also represented by many user studies in LIS. This example would have been much more relevant if this connection had been demonstrated.

In conclusion, this is a broad, well‐balanced and sympathetic book about knowledge written especially for librarians and information scientists. It is my hope that the very existence of this texts will inspire more schools of LIS to provide courses in epistemology and science studies. The author of this book is among the very few persons in LIS that are well qualified in philosophy, and this book reflects his qualifications. There is still a great need, however, for more books in this field. Especially, there is a need for books about research methods in information science based on the kind of insight that epistemological studies provide.