My name is Lauren Pressley and I am am entering my final year of library school at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. As part of my MLIS program, and as a former philosophy major, I wanted to do an independent study focusing on philosophical issues in library and information science. My focus in philosophy included the study of knowledge, particularly social epistemology. I have found that this interest intersects well with LIS.
This blog will contain a public journal of the readings that I have done as part of this independent study, a bibliography of useful sources for people interested in these issues, and reflections leading to a final paper.
My website can be found at laurenpressley.com.
December 22, 2006 at 7:05 am
Hello Lauren,
I am in the exact same boat as you, plan to graduate this spring with my MLS from SCSU in CT.
I just finished a paper for my research class tracing LIS its theory-practice rift, new developments in interdiciplinary research in LIS and social epistemology. Are you aware that SE was pioneered as the theorectical foundation to LIS by one of the top LIS scholars and educators Jesse Shera and his collegue Margaret Egan? I find the whole intellectual trajectory of SE very fascinating especially seeing that its roots come from LIS. You should check out “Library Trends” Spring 2004 for the lit review by Zandonade. Its actually free online and has the complimentary article from the same issue that highlights Margaret Egan. Also there is a journal called Social Epistemology founded by Steve Fuller which had a special issue devoted to LIS in 2002. Very crucial stuff. Its all detailed in the Zandonade article. Anyways i wish you were in my class. I felt like the odd man out for sure. There are not many folks,in my program at least, that care or even want to be bothered with these areas. I would definetly get all you can on Jesse Shera. He was a crucial figure in LIS by leaps and bounds and should be known along with Ranganathan, his friend and collegue. Hope your studies go well, would be interested seeing your final for you study. Also i think Jeff Vails “A Theory of Power” is a must read. You can download it for free from his site. http://www.jeffvail.net/
cheers
Jason Villani
Wallingford CT
December 23, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Hi, there!
I am happy to find two more colleagues interested in SE and LIS, that I consider a very promising field. I am working on my doctoral dissertation about an application of Alvin Goldman’s veritistic social epistemology to the evaluation of information literacy courses on line. I live and work in Mexico, but I will obtain my doctoral degree from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain.
I can add to your sources a recent article of Don Fallis in ARIST v.40 that is also a good introduction to the subject. I have wrote myself a brief paper about SE and LIS (in Spanish) which is in press now. It contains a historical review and a very complete bibliography from Shera to now. Besides Social Epistemology, another good journal is Episteme, which includes accesible articles about the subject from different theoretical perspectives. You culd also be interested in the “dyscourse synthese” of Raymond McInnis.
I hope we will be in contact from now on.
Best regards,
Pilar María Moreno
El Colegio de México
Mexico City
January 6, 2007 at 11:21 pm
[...] over the holidays, I received two comments on the blog. It looks like one was from another MLS student, and one was from a doctoral student. [...]
January 6, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Hello there,
Thank you so much for posting. These issues are really interesting to me, too! I’ve posted a response on my permanent blog at laurenpressley.com/library. Please feel free to comment or email me. I’d love to continue the conversation.
April 21, 2008 at 11:22 am
I am a college librarian who is thinking hard about reframing information literacy as “knowledge construction” and how students can gain critical information literacy from learning about disciplinary discourses. The huge problem is how to scaffold this. Typically, students are only ready to understand methodology in a capstone course.
I am reading Julie Thompson Klein and developing a curriculum development grant on interdisciplinary pedagogy that is geared to teaching faculty but may draw on some of the philosophers you mention. I’m sure I’ll benefit greatly from your blog.
If you want to contact me, I’m at mberger@citytech.cuny.edu