Critical Perspectives on Library and Information Studies

A series of papers contributing to the critical perspective on Library and Information Studies.

 

"Hegemony's Handmaid? The Library and Information Studies Curriculum from a Class Perspective," appeared in The Library Quarterly, (vol. 68 no. 2 [Spring, 1998]: 123-44).

Abstract:
The field of Library and Information Studies (LIS) has traditionally avoided class analysis in favor of two other perspectives: pluralism and managerialism. While pluralism focuses on the behavior of interacting individuals, and managerialism emphasizes organizations treated as systems, a relational class perspective argues that the LIS curriculum is just one of a constellation of middle class practices aimed at maintaining hegemonic control by the dominant class. Four focal areas have preoccupied the LIS curricular field at least since the 1923 Williamson Report, that relate to the theory and practice of cultural hegemony: links with the corporate world, professionalization, aspiration to scientific status and stratification of literacy and of institutions. However, hegemony is never complete; historically some librarians and LIS educators have resisted ideological domination. For the newly-emerging "information profession" to avoid political naiveté, the LIS curriculum should include social theory as a tool for rigorous, theoretical and empowering analysis of current far-ranging societal changes.
 

"Information Literacy: a Contradictory Coupling," The Library Quarterly, (vol. 73 no. 4, [October, 2003], 422-452).

Abstract:
Information literacy has established itself as an important sub-field of librarianship. Yet although librarians justify information literacy as increasing democratic participation by all citizens, their efforts to improve "quality control" of information also threaten to restrict choice in systematic ways. This contradiction results in part from the genealogy of the terms "information" and "literacy," terms that share a relationship traceable to an Enlightenment ideology, namely that reading could transform society by informing its people. But reading's power to transform was also a contested issue for groups seeking political and cultural ascendancy, and reading genres that initially challenged conventional thought evolved into those that buttressed it. In the process, some groups came to be defined as information "consumers" and simultaneously excluded from the role of information "producers." Strategies that can raise awareness of the assumptions underlying this legacy include critical analysis of language use and envisioning information use as a process that involves all users in both consumption and production. Adopting these can help librarians recognize that the tensions inherent in the discourse and practice of information literacy are not only unavoidable but essential if the basic condition of democracy--citizen participation--is to be fulfilled.

"Unequal Legacies: Race and Multiculturalism in the LIS Curriculum." This article, currently in preparation, will appear in The Library Quarterly during 2005.

Abstract:
Race remains poorly understood and inadequately represented in Library and Information Science (LIS) education. LIS educators tend to avoid the term “race,” preferring the more inclusive “multiculturalism.” Yet these terms are far from equivalent: the various dimensions of multiculturalism, including race, ethnicity, class, and gender, have different histories and different theoretical explanations. Four models dominate LIS research and teaching: Science/Technology, Business/Management, Mission/Service and Society/Culture. Each has left its own racialized legacy, invisibly influencing the field’s current concepts of race. Drawing on recent research into “whiteness” and racial formation, the author shows that although each model transmits an inheritance that perpetuates white privilege, each also carries the potential for positive transformation. Arguing that courses in all four areas have the capability to foreground race, the paper outlines ways in which faculty, students, and library practitioners together can make curricular changes that contribute to the creation of libraries as “non-white” or “race-neutral” space.