We now turn to a topic we have not discussed in the past. Dr. Robert Holley suggested our new topic on "Varying Research Cultures" and we both thought such a topic would be especially relevant in view of the growing interdisciplinary nature of educational programs in information and library science. Bob is the director of the Library and Information Science Program at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He holds a doctorate in French Language and Literature from Yale University and an MLS from Columbia University. He was a librarian and library manager at Yale University, the University of Utah, and Wayne State University before becoming a full-time faculty member. He has eclectic interests including film, which he taught at Utah, and Canadian studies.
Please join us for a discussion of "Varying Research Cultures."
The immediate nudge to volunteer to lead this discussion came from reading Who Got Einstein's Office by Ed Regis (Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1987). This history of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey highlights the changes in research methodology over the last 60 years, most particularly in the area of physics. By the mid- 1980s, the attempt to explain the nature of the universe had moved so far away from the domain of the experimental method as to become almost indistinguishable from philosophy. With extraordinarily complicated mathematical formulae, physicists argued among themselves on the number of theoretical dimensions needed and on the necessity to posit "strings" as an explanation for the universe. And they did all this without any possibility of laboratory proof from the "real" world.
What also struck me was the agreement, as portrayed in the book, among the physicists on the appropriateness of this "philosophical" research methodology. Though arcane and difficult to explain to outsiders, their theoretical discussions made sense to them as an international community of scholars.
I don't believe that we have the same community of scholars in library and information science because we enter the field from a variety of research traditions. Interdisciplinarity has its rewards but also its drawbacks. Do we have difficulty talking to one another because our discourse is based upon assumptions that aren't explicit and that we may not even be aware of ourselves?
To give my own perspective (bias), I come to library and information science with a strong humanities background. I had a dual major in classics and French as an undergraduate and then went on to get a Ph.D. in French language and literature at Yale University. Graduating at the beginning of the Ph.D. glut, I took a paraprofessional position at Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, for what I thought would be one year. Nine months later, I found myself commuting to Columbia University to get my MLS.
As a humanities graduate, I have great respect for intuitive insights, for examining texts as a way of understanding the beliefs and assumptions of the author, and for using persuasion and rhetoric as a way to change people's opinions. I also believe that there may exist unprovable "truths" though I don't count very much on them in my daily life.
I also remember my strong objections to a paper at a past ACRL conference where the authors equated teaching research in library school with offering a course in statistics. The historian, the literary scholarly, the philosopher, and the creative artist can all produce what my university and most other North American universities regard as appropriate research without any use of statistics. Finally, one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers, Sigmund Freud, advanced his discipline enormously, not through experimental evidence, but through creative insights based in part upon classical mythology.
But let's get on with the discussion. I hope that many of you will find time during the busy holiday season to respond to some of the following questions:
Let's get on with the discussion.
I come to these from outside the library research community, but as a fairly frequent contributor to the general and juried literature. I wish to address three of the questions:
"Is library and information science basically a social science? If yes, where would it be placed most closely on a map of social science research methodologies, or is this an unfair question?"
"What is the role of intuitive insight in library and information science?"
This may not be a meaningful difference to those who catalog and classify various items, but it is an essential issue for those of us who provide direct user services. A line of distinguished library thinkers, including Ranganathan, Shera, Shores, and even Archibald MacLeish affirm that this is an important distinction.
Whether or not librarianship is a social science depends, of course, upon definitions. The question may be answerable if one distinguishes between an abstract field of study and its practical application.
I would argue that librarianship, in the abstract, is the study of the relationships between various subject matters and thus akin in various ways to the history of ideas, social psychology, and epistemology. Shera's concept of "social epistemology" splits the differences quite nicely.
Two practical paths result. On the one hand, there are those needed to create an ordered collection or, at the very least, an ordered catalog for those who want access to the material. This is, one might say, "librarianship as taught" since the emphasis is understandably as much about item description as it is abstract relationships.
On the other hand, there are those who must use the collection and work with the many who are either unfamiliar with library conventions and/or the topic about which they seek information or haven't the time to do their own research. These library "output workers" (various public service personnel) need useful and appropriate introductions to public information needs, which one might call an expanded sense of "cultural literacy" (to use the phrase popularized by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.). They need broad subject knowledge (at least in the case of public libraries) in order to interpret the users needs so that they may be satisfied from what is available in the library collection.
The two paths are complementary and, in my view, equally important. But, following Dewey's lead, we've trained for only one.
Intuitive insight is essential, as it is in the most abstruse "hard sciences," because data and its interpretation are never separate. This is in the nature of the relationships: they are seldom clear cut and are always liable for reinterpretation.
However, if librarianship is seen as a form of "engineering" (which is why, using 19th century terminology we can speak of "library science") then insight may not be so essential. But, if this is so, then librarianship should not have been able to grow beyond the bounds of Dewey's first edition.
All forms of engineering rely, at some remove, upon an intuitive science.
I congratulate Bob Watson for beginning the discussion. He questions the possibility of research norms because library and information science hasn't even agreed upon its subject matter. He also comments that the question of whether librarianship is a social science depends upon the definition of social science. Finally, he accepts the need for intuitive insight because "data and its interpretation are never separate."
Let me see if focusing on one of my points can lure some comments.
One of the fundamental questions in evaluating research is its level of general applicability. In fact, much of the progress in areas like physics has resulted in creating knowledge of wider application. Newtonian physics applies to the earth; Einsteinian physics to the universe. One of the debates of this century is nature versus nurture. Do humans behave in certain ways of their genetic heritage or because of cultural influences? One of the principles of the humanities is that human nature transcends space and time to the point that the literature, art, and music of one culture still has "universal" meaning.
To apply this reasoning to our field, do we deal with "universal" concepts or not? If a researcher constructs a valid research study on the information seeking behaviors of six year olds in Chicago in 1994, how universal will these findings be? First, will the results be valid in other parts of the world? Will they vary according to language, culture, education, etc.? Second, will the results vary over time? Would an identical study in 1964 or in 2114 report different findings? Would the results be different if the researchers were studying adults?
The answer to this fundamental question has enormous implications for library and information science because much of our effort has sought to create models and structures that foster effective access to information. Our cataloging codes, databases, search engines, reference sources and services all rest in part on an assumption of the universality of information seeking behavior.
Finally, will the Internet draw the world together to the point that this "universality," even if not true in the past, may become more so in the near future?
Well, what do you think?
I await comments on this issue or on any of the questions raised in my introduction to the topic.
For a local culture, the program, to be productive that local culture must create an environment where the faculty member has time and incentives to conduct research and publish it. When I look at the culture of a productive english or physics departments, not only do they differ from one another, but they also have elements in common.
Research, first, and teaching, second, are expected, demanded. If individual research productivity is consistent, it is rewarded and there are, at least, modest reductions in teaching.
There are not many other expectations and those that exist are very limited.
Committee work and other activity may get accomplished, but they are diversions and are regarded as time stealers from the primary mission of creating new knowledge. Faculty are openly and actively resentful of these diversions. When the diversions become burdensome, some faculty REFUSE to participate. Yes, they shout.
Faculty members in these departments are only in their offices when required by their duties or when it facilitates research. One does not expect them to be always present.
There seems to be more consensus on method and research agenda. There are, however, other interdisciplinary departments where the lack of methodological consensus exists; is even promoted. A kind of general consensus on research agenda, an agreement about what the priority areas are, is probably more important than agreement on method. That consensus needs to be grounded in the research agenda of the larger field, but need not encompass all or even many of elements from that larger field.
Which brings me to the question, are there any research designs that are unique to Librarianship?
Last spring, in Social Epistemology, v. 10, no. 1, was published a theme issue that I guest edited. The theme is "Discourse Synthesis," a theme that I expect library school faculty and academic librarians would have a vital interest, since all of us, teachers and practitioners alike, work in "the laboratory of knowledge." (Discourse synthesis, roughly speaking, is a concept that incorporates all activity in scholarship that relates to processes of constructing and validating bodies of knowledge.)
The one faculty in a library school I tried to recruit as an author claimed to be too busy to do a paper on "encyclopedias as a tool of discourse synthesis," so I was forced to go outside the profession, and finally recruited someone in the history and philosophy of science.
For investigations of discourse synthesis in such areas as economic history, literature of health research, literary theory, discourse synthesis in meta-analysis, I also had to select people outside the library profession. I myself wrote a paper on "the specialized dictionary as a tool of discourse synthesis", and I also wrote the introduction, "Defining Discourse Synthesis."
Most remarkable about all papers in the "Discourse Synthesis" issue, however, is that although heavily documented, except for two or three in the references for the paper on encyclopedias, none of the citations in all papers are from publications by library faculty nor professional librarians.
Here is my question: Why is there such a dearth of work by librarians, either as faculty in library schools or practitioners working in the field, on such epistemological issues as "discourse synthesis"? One would think that such topics are a "natural" area for librarians to investigate.
First, Ray McInnis asks a very important question about the relationship of librarianship to ideas and knowledge, which I think boils down to "whatever happened to library theory?" I confess that I've little reason to read the journals dedicated to library educators or university librarians, but I must report that the concept of "theory" seems to be alien to most writers contributing to the general or public library literature.
The literature is full of "where" and "how," but not so hot on "why."
The profession's modern history of course descends through Dewey's establishment of "library economy" but one thinks that we should have developed something better. And we must; none of us, I think, need to be reminded that as our collections -- and catalogs -- become digitized there is less and less need for local housekeeping. Why aren't librarians concerned about social epistemology and similar theory issues when it is obvious that theory must guide practice?
My second point goes to Bob Holley's prodding about general applicability. A buzz word term over the past 10 years or so has been "information literacy," which implies that once a person learns search skills in one area they substantially carry over into others.
I would not argue that such techniques as general computer use skills do not carry over, but there is considerable research among psychologists that asserts that successful searching depends upon a certain minimal subject knowledge. (See, for instance: Holland, et al., Induction: Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discovery [MIT, 1986] or Holyoak, "Problem Solving" in Thinking: An Invitation to Cognitive Science [MIT, 1990].)
If we are to provide access to information we have to provide for the fact that people bring their limited knowledge to our collections (or any collection). This, too, much be accounted for in a general theory of librarianship if we are to meet user needs.
My third point is to thank Ben Speller for his observation. The profession has a history, but this tends to get lost as we pursue "what's happening'" today.
The actual Internet can be considered as a worldwide communication infrastructure which comprises networked computers using the TCP/IP protocol suite and includes universally applicable services. Whereas the Internet as an infrastructure is universal, special applications of Internet services are more or less particular because the applications are determined by the fields of interest of the appliers, for instance researchers. Research goals, methods and interpretation modes vary a great deal; each research field represents a particular information intensive environment. As a consequence, the Internet-based communication platform appears highly complex and its development continues, due to the fact that the underlying Internet infrastructure and sometimes also the application fields evolve at a fast rate.
We may generalize the principle of the universal Internet communication infrastructure and the different application fields: Within the domain of information retrieval, the information technology delivers the universal retrieval methods to the particular application fields. But these fields are determined by several specific categories which have to be known by the searcher. This leads us to the recent posting of Bob Watson saying that "successful searching depends upon a certain minimal subject knowledge."
Much of this (and other related) discussion revolves around a question which can be phrased "what is specific to (library science, library studies, information science, L & I sci, etc.) as areas of research interest, research methods, and the like?"
If I recall correctly, until the late 19th century, the only "legitimate" areas of true academic interest were law, theology, philosophy and medicine. Thus, we have natural philosophy covering what we would now call physics and psychology, for example. However, by the middle of the 19th century, we also have something calling themselves "colleges" (or located in "universities") which provide instruction in such things as engineering, business and the like.
Perhaps a look at how those disciplines developed academic legitimacy, accepted areas of interest, and research methods would be of value here? I'm thinking, for example, of the place of schools of journalism/ mass communications -- until sometime in the 1960s there was significant disdain among practitioners for J-school graduates, and at least some disdain among the academics for J-schools as not really anything more than trade schools.
Probably this should be a topic on its own sometime, but some look at parallels would be interesting, at least.
I generally agree with James Benson in his comments about the concrete elements of research cultures. For a uniformly productive research faculty, the rewards must flow to research. On the other hand, I admire individuals, often those who have changed careers, who continue to produce research in their subject areas that is completely unrelated to their positions. They do so often with little reward and at great sacrifice. I believe that the desire to produce research and to write can get into a person's blood.
James also raises a point near the end that could elicit further comment. Does a faculty where all members agree about priority areas produce more research than a faculty with diverse research interests? In the first case, faculty would have more opportunities to collaborate and to share ideas. This was certainly the case in the history of the Institute for Advanced Study. Somewhat to the surprise of the founders, the researchers clustered by discipline with very little cross-fertilization. I don't want to give up hope, however, on interdisciplinary efforts.
Ben Speller asks about research designs that are unique to librarianship. Does this question have any takers? In a second message, he also supports the premise that research in librarianship should draw upon theoretical frames from different disciplines.
Raymond G. McInnis asks why little research occurs in the area of epistemology. Bob Watson goes on to provide an answer by pointing back to the practical tradition of Melvill Dewey. I'd also like to add that epistemology is a difficult discipline. In principle, all of us should be interested in the topic if only to understand better our own knowledge seeking behaviors. But to refer to one of Moliere's most famous scenes, does learning that we speak prose help us speak prose any better? I'm not saying that it doesn't, but it's an interesting question. I proposed this topic, in part, because I have an avocational interest in epistemology that I haven't sufficiently nurtured in my academic career.
Bob Watson also brings up the issue of information literacy and the ability to carry over to other areas. I have at times not been popular in pointing out to those who wish to integrate librarians into the classroom that a librarian could not help the professors in my subject area unless the librarian spoke fluent French because the search terms and, at times, even the search strategies depend upon the rules of a different language and a different culture.
Tahirih Mitchell brings up the point about replicating studies across geographic boundaries. This is exactly what I would like to see happen because such studies might help answer the questions that I posed earlier about the universality of information seeking behavior. Yes, some, if not many, principles taught in library school transcend cultural and language boundaries, but which ones? Where is librarianship a cultural specific discipline?
William Arthur Liebi correctly defines the Internet as an infrastructure and talks about special applications. What I meant in my earlier comments was the possibility for the Internet to have an even more pervasive effect upon culture than television and to foster some sort of common denominator of universal culture. I remember reading that studies show that the introduction of television into a culture brings with it certain predictable effects. The Internet, with its more open availability, at least at this point, has the potential to help bring such a universality in information seeking behavior that transcends national and cultural boundaries.
Finally, James Sweetland asks whether library and information science has to establish its own legitimacy by defining its "areas of research or research interest, research methods, and the like". He suggests this as a possible topic in its own right.
To give some concluding thoughts, I was thinking about this topic on my drive home last night. The movie Independence Day made the assumption that any civilization, even a non-human one, would have information processing needs that lead to the development of computers. From this premise, the hero can then write a virus to infect the invaders' main computer. I believe that at least one reviewer considered this an exceptional leap of faith. But this leap of faith is for me at the heart of this discussion. How universal are the conclusions that we draw in our research? Does this universality vary according to the research culture to which we belong?
The questions above also depend upon our field of vision. Researching, for example, subject access to abstract concepts in the Dewey Decimal Classification is simple and specific. The same research in Anglo-American systems and then all major systems becomes both more universal and more difficult. Extending this to all types of information retrieval systems is yet another step. If finally this becomes an epistemological study of information seeking behaviors in the human species in the area of abstract concepts, this research will look for universality and a level of abstraction far different from the limited research even if the conclusions may have great consequences for these practical embodiments of the general principles.
Is there a unified field theory for information? Or is information and information seeking behavior a culturally mutable construct that will require constantly renewed research, even on the same topics, to verify that conclusions remain valid?
Once more, jump in with your comments. The discussion doesn't end until this weekend.
 Home |
 Discussion |