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Knowledge Structures

Knowledge Structures. Knowledge Structures. The course focuses on knowledge structures (rather than information processes) from 3 perspectives: (1) how knowledge establishes a particular moral order (legitimate discourses and invisible voices, monsters and outsiders)

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Knowledge Structures

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  1. Knowledge Structures

  2. Knowledge Structures • The course focuses on knowledge structures (rather than information processes) from 3 perspectives: • (1) how knowledge establishes a particular moral order (legitimate discourses and invisible voices, monsters and outsiders) • cultural myopias and ‘common sense’ • historical knowledge systems (epistemes) • colonial discourses • knowledge that is circulated in institutional contexts • knowledge as local experience • (2) scientific communities that are involved in the production of knowledge • (3) memory institutions that shape the society’s memories

  3. The Course Objectives • Comparing and contrasting diverse knowledge systems and understanding their participation in framing social worlds, moral codes, and practice • Examination of knowledge systems from a historical and multicultural perspective • Examination of the role of contemporary library and information agencies in providing access to knowledge systems through information infrastructures and the role of information professionals • Examination of scholarly communication and of one knowledge domain and a scholarly journal related to that area in depth

  4. The Course Objectives • Examination of students' own epistemological positions and evaluation of how these may affect their contribution to knowledge production in building information infrastructures (selection of materials, providing access to materials in the context of information agencies) • Examination of historical artefacts in the context of production, dissemination, and consumption of knowledge • Evaluation of representational systems and organizational schemes for access of knowledge artefacts in a variety of settings, with an emphasis on the traditional context of information work in libraries, archives, and museums

  5. Organization of the Course

  6. Knowledge Structures and Moral Order • Intellectual Origins of Knowledge Systems • Knowledge and Power • Knowledge and Experience • Knowledge and Practice • Multicultural Perspectives: Deconstructing Orientalism • Historical Perspectives: Deconstructing the Englightenment

  7. Knowledge Domains and Communities of Practice • Science & Technology • Social Sciences • Arts & Humanities • Popular Culture • Information Work: Professionalization • Information Work: Process & Practice in Organizational Contexts

  8. Knowledge and Memory • Organizational Memory and Organizational Forgetting • Memory Institutions: Museums, Archives, Libraries, Digital Libraries • Social Memory • Lifecycles: Artefacts, Documents

  9. The (Big) Why?

  10. The (Big) Why? LIS education entered this Western post-Enlightenment web of shifting forces on January 5, 1887, right in the middle of an era when a generation of pioneers were setting the jurisdictional boundaries of other professions like law, medicine, engineering, education, and psychology, all of which -- like librarianship--wanted to attach their professional programs to institutions of higher education, and especiall those institutions transitioning from a classical college into a research university (Wayne Wiegand, Core Curriculum: A White Paper) www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html)

  11. The (Big) Why? Two functionalities of librarianship established with the establishment of the first library program at Columbia, by Melvil Dewey, on 5 January 1887 were institution and expertise. Institution: how best to function as librarians; how to run the institution and what expertise was necessary to select and organize its information resources and exploit them most efficiently for the benefit of the public; inculcating the library ‘spirit’, an attitude about library use and access to collections that distinguished Dewey’s from previous generations of librarians who were more concerned with security and preservation. Expertise: practical professional matters like cataloging and classification, book selecting procedures, circulation methods, management of the library institution (Wayne Wiegand, Core Curriculum: A White Paper) www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html)

  12. The (Big) Why? The expertise would help the future professionals acquire, organize, and make accessible the ‘quality’ literature and ‘reliable’ information the ‘institution’ would house. Institution: the professional’s ‘character’ is a key upholding the institutional aspect of librarianship Expertise: to increase efficiency, production, and social control 1951 ALA Standards accredited only those library school programs that led to a master’s degree, the goal of recruiting people of ‘character’ into the profession did not significantly change [from 1887]. Aspirants to the Profession had to have a liberal arts undergraduate degree as basis for entering the professional program which then concentrated on developing professional expertise and institutional management skills. (Wayne Wiegand, Core Curriculum: A White Paper) www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html)

  13. The (Big) Why? Sociologist Paul Starr (1983) argues that the ‘authority’ professions exercise derives from the power the dominant culture allocates to certain professional groups -- scientists, intellectuals, belles letters authors, and disciplinary experts in the academy -- to identify not only the quality information within their areas of authority, but also to define the canons against which any new information ought to be judged. These authorities, Starr argues, determine which objects of cultural and intellectual authority contain particular definitions of reality and judgements of meaning and value [that] are considered valid and true. These objects are then collected and made available in a variety of institutional settings to all members of society for their own benefit. (Notice how nicely this line of logic fits Foucault’s perception of the post-Enlightenment dominant culture’s ceaseless efforts to increase efficiency, production and social control. (Wayne Wiegand, Core Curriculum: A White Paper) www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html)

  14. The (Big) Why? • Unique professional responsibility of the profession has been information handling (ways to acquire, organize, preserve and circulate certain approved or legitimated kinds of information, no matter their textual format). From 1887 to 1999 (in 112 years) billions of people have benefited from the professional practice grounded on this core). • The authority to determine the value of the information objects of librarians and other information specialists is dangerous, because of possible cultural myopia that makes librarians (in varying degrees) succumb to tunnel vision and blind spots along lines of gender, age, class, and sexual orientation (among many others) • Blind spots visible in problems with information handling processes (homophobic LC subject headings, Eurocentric nature of DDC) (Wayne Wiegand, Core Curriculum: A White Paper) www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html)

  15. The (Big) Why? • To avoid these problems, librarians must not lose sight of the broader context that embraces both the ‘institution’ and ‘expertise’ and the ‘character’ and ‘authority’ on which it is grounded • People of both genders, all classes, ages, ethnicities, creeds and sexual orientations need to have multiple information environments grounded on multiple character and authority bases that may have or not been well served by the information handling processes that are privileged and followed the lead of the evangelists of information technology who see a particular future as a certainty • Technologies touted by certain authorities necessarily lead to tunnel vision and blind spots (Wayne Wiegand, Core Curriculum: A White Paper) www.ala.org/congress/wiegand.html)

  16. The Why of Knowledge Structures? • De-programming tunnel vision based on lack of understanding of the broader context of how knowledge is created as it encounters the information handling processes needed by librarians in building multiple information environments grounded on multiple character and authority bases • Why librarians (information professionals getting their credentials from ALA-accredited programs)? Because librarianship can be seen as organized political interest, also because they are engaged with information handling as core of their professional expertise

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