Mapping the Dimensions of a Dynamic Field

Caroline Haythornthwaite, Geoffrey Bowker, Christine Jenkins, and W. Boyd RaywardAdvanced Studies Committee, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois atUrbana–Champaign, 501 E. Daniel St., Champaign, IL 61820. E-mail: haythorn@uiuc.edu

Introduction

Over the last year the authors have been guiding a majorrevision of the “core reading list” (Graduate School ofLibrary and Information Science [GSLIS], 1999) that sup-ports the comprehensive examination for GSLIS doctoralstudents at the University of Illinois (to see a copy of thecurrent core list, follow the links from http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/gslis). The GSLIS doctoral program is designed toprepare students to be researchers and teachers in libraryand information science (LIS). Students’ interests cover awide range of topics, but each must complete a comprehen-sive examination that covers the breadth of the field of LIS.Our goal has been to define a reading list for this examina-tion that provides (1) a common grounding irrespective ofthe focus of students’ individual interests in LIS, and (2) atheoretical base that will prepare them to deal with issues inthe future.

We soon discovered that coming up with a core readinglist entailed more than just finding appropriate reading. Wehad to come up with an operational definition of the field ofLIS. Our challenge was to capture the changing dimensionsof LIS, to portray the apparent diversity that characterizesthe field today, as well as to create a coherent picture of anevolving discipline. We believe that the results of thisexercise may have a more general interest beyond the cir-cumstances within which it was completed. This short arti-cle describes the key elements we believed had to be in-cluded and kept in balance to achieve our goal and presentsthe conceptual schema that emerged from our work.

Embracing Diversity

Early on we made a number of decisions that helped usapproach the mapping task systematically. First, we decidedto identify a set of major topics and to be guided in this bythe range of expertise and the diversity of academic back-grounds that the faculty bring to the field, rather than tryingto engage in an exercise of exhaustive specification. An-

other decision was to include a balanced selection of rep-resentative faculty publications in the list wherever possi-ble. These decisions allow us to describe the field pragmat-ically in terms of the needs and interests of our particularschool without prescribing it in some absolute sense. Inev-itably, as we developed the reading list, we found topics thatwe felt should be represented but for which there was littleor no local faculty expertise. These we dealt with as specialcases.

Another practical problem was the selection of a man-ageable quantity of reading from among the various sub-stantive areas represented by faculty expertise together withthose that we saw as shaping LIS. We wanted to introducebasic ideas, methods, and theories, and highlight a selectionof major themes in each area so that students would havesome sense of an analytical framework for that area. Inconsulting the faculty for references, we found ourselvesinvolved in an iterative educational process by which thefaculty as a whole came to understand what was meant by,and what was involved in, creating the core reading list. Bythis means we believe that we were able to achieve anappropriate balance in the list as a basis for outlining thedimensions of the field.

Bridging Divides

Along with embracing diversity, we also considered itimportant that the list bridge a number of divides or con-trasts which we believe to be inherent in LIS, and which weidentified by a process of brainstorming and subsequent,more reflective critical discussion.

● Library science and information science● Classic literature and contemporary work● Traditional approaches and innovative approaches● Technical solutions and social impacts● Quantitative and qualitative approaches● Local settings and global standards.

With respect to the last point, in part because of theinterdisciplinary research that is increasingly informingLIS, we have become much more sensitive to the need to© 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE. 50(12):1092–1094, 1999 CCC 0002-8231/99/121092-03

have detailed knowledge of local cultures, work settings,and conditions when implementing systems. But, it is alsonecessary to produce globally accepted standards, e.g.,metadata standards such as Dublin Core, and to adapt andimplement them locally as appropriate.

Mapping the Field

This approach led to a clearer view of the synergy amongan apparently diverse set of specialties which have beengathered recently into schools of LIS. Although we note theperils of over-simplification, in Figure 1, we present aconceptual schema that shows how major aspects of thesespecialties overlap within the field of LIS. It may be arguedthat the elements we have placed at particular intersectionsmight well be placed elsewhere, or that there are some areasof professional or intellectual activity that do not fit at all orfit poorly. We make no special claims for the novelty of ourcategories, however our approach allowed us to move for-ward analytically, taking a step, for example, beyond thekind of enumeration of categories contained in the profes-sionally-oriented California Library Association (CLA)statement on the future of librarianship (CLA Taskforce,1996). It suggests, too, ways of bridging or interrelating thetwo traditions of information science described by Buckland(1999, this issue ofJASIS). One is a document-based tradi-tion concerned with “signifying records.” The other is aformal or computational tradition concerned with the appli-cation of logical, mathematical, and mechanical tools.While Buckland comments that these traditions imply anincreasingly out-of-date dichotomy, their reciprocal influ-ences can still be glimpsed in what he calls the current“complex landscape” of the field. We offer our schema assomething we found useful in a post hoc fashion in mappingthis landscape; in revealing an order or coherence in theseemingly unruly ideas with which we had been dealing.

With these caveats explicit, we suggest that the ideascentral to the field of LIS are embraced in the intersection of

issues, research problems, and areas of professional practicerelating to the following dimensions:

● Resources: information; texts; documents and surrogatedocuments; objects; material collections, etc.

● Technology: tools; computer programs; card catalogs;thesauri, classification schemes; standards, etc.

● Organizations: libraries, museums, archives; standards-setting agencies; for-profit enterprises; government bodies.

● Social context: individuals, groups, and organizations intheir multiple contexts and relationships.

While the four dimensions themselves are not novel, wefound that an examination of their intersections (as pre-sented diagrammatically in Figure 1), gave us an unusualapproach to the identification and analysis of important LISissues. The two-way intersections provide a starting pointfor examining the complexity of LIS issues. For example,the separation of “resources” from “technology” allows usto place data storage devices such as books, pamphlets, etc.,and contemporary computer storage at the intersection ofthese two dimensions. This then allows us to explore howprinciples of storage and retrieval, developed in the contextof one type of storage device, can inform the developmentof techniques for other types of devices.

Although the two-way intersections are interesting, oursense is that they fail to capture the full complexity of LISissues. What they do is to offer a simplification that allows aninitial cast at what is involved in a particular issue. They helphighlight the source of possible borrowings by LIS from otherdisciplines. For example, aspects of classification, informationstorage and retrieval, and database design may be consideredpart of the intersection of resources and technology (Table 1),with relevant developments in computer science fitting in thisintersection. However, to develop a fuller understanding ofthese issues, it is necessary to include, as well, consideration ofthe organizational and/or social context.

At the other extreme, the intersection of the four dimensionsat the center of Figure 1 (labeled R3 T 3 O3 S) is where onewould locate the institutions of libraries, museums, archives,and the information industry. These organizations can be seenas arising from a process of institutionalization that is anongoing consequence of the interplay of forces deriving fromthe four dimensions. New organizational forms emerge andolder ones adapt in response to turbulence resulting fromchanges in the four dimensions. While we are accustomed toseeing organizations in terms of physical entities such as li-braries, museums, or archives, they are now being mirroredelectronically. What might be described as a kind of digitaldeinstitutionalization occurs as we create, for example, digitallibraries and digital museums. Our view, however, is that whatis involved is a new kind of institutionalization of resources,collections, and processes of information exchange that re-spond to new kinds of societal needs and pressures. We see theevolution of these new forms as an exciting area of develop-ment for LIS in the next 50 years, and one that can be informedby LIS research.

FIG. 1. A conceptual schema of key dimensions in LIS.

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It is in the three-way intersections presented in Figure 1that we believe many key issues are emerging and beingplayed out in LIS. According to our model, there appears tobe a constant movement toward the center of our diagram aswe seek fuller understanding of LIS,1 the sort of movementthat generally reflects and follows the active accumulationof knowledge that accompanies scholarship, particularlyscholarship with an interdisciplinary focus.

We concluded that the schema itself, incorporating thesefour dimensions and their intersections, together with theconcept of movement to more complex interactions, providenot only a useful heuristic to help guide doctoral students,but also provides a way of approaching the complex issuesof domain specification that LIS presents. Issues that may bethought initially to fall into the two-way intersections gainuseful complexity when considered in the three-way inter-sections. Located thus, they demand subtler and more pow-erful explanations.

For example, by taking processes that are addressed inthe combination of resources and technology (Table 1) andconsidering them in the context of organizational issues, wemove from instrumental decisions about the manipulation ofdata and tools to more holistic decisions about the role andplace of data and systems in work practices. Questionsabout the most efficient way to store and/or retrieve data, arefollowed by more complex considerations of organizationalissues, such as how does the structuring of data restrict,direct, or modify intellectual inquiry, work tasks, and workroles? When we add issues of social context, for example,examining the reciprocal relationships between data sys-tems and societal practices, we become more concernedwith issues of evaluation. We then ask questions such aswho has access to what kinds of data, what does “access”mean in our society, and are the information disseminationmechanisms serving all members of society equitably?

There are many such questions to formulate and to askabout many aspects of LIS interests and we have onlyscratched the surface here. Some of our ideas of what islocated at the three-way intersections are presented morefully in Table 1.

Conclusion

While time required us to finalize a core reading list forthe coming year, we acknowledge that “defining the core” isa task that must always be described in the present tense.The field is an exceptionally dynamic and interdisciplinaryone. Thus, as we constantly define and redefine the core listand its organization—as new topics emerge, as new disci-plinary relationships become feasible, and as new facultyand students enter and influence the field of library andinformation science—we are, in effect, continually remak-ing the map of the discipline.

References

Buckland, M. (1999). The landscape of information science: The AmericanSociety for Information Science at 62. JASIS, 50, 970–974.

California Library Association (1995). Report on the future of librarianshipin California. Available at: http://cla-net.org/pubs/future.html.

Graduate School of Library and Information Science (1999). Core readinglist. Available at: http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/gslis/program/phd_top.html.1 Our thanks to Paul Marty for this observation.

TABLE 1. Positioning LIS in the intersections of issues relating toresources, technology, organizations, and social context.

Starting from the two-wayintersection of:

which involves, for example, thepractice and study of:

Resources and Technology: classification, informationrepresentation, informationstorage and retrieval, cataloging,thesauri, metadata,database design, data mining

we are led into the three-way which involves, for example,intersection withOrganizations:

information systems analysis anddesign, human–computer

Resources, Technology, andOrganizations:

interaction, enterprise-widecomputing, digitallibrary design and use, intranetdesign; as well as addingnew dimensions to the topicsnoted above in the two-wayintersection of Resources andTechnology

as well as the three-way which involves, for example,intersection with SocialContext:

information policy, reading,information-seeking

Resources, Technology, andSocial Context:

behavior, information services,communication ofinformation, user communities;as well as elaborating onissues in the two-wayintersection of Resources andTechnology

The remaining three-way which involves, for example,intersections are: privacy, copyright and

ownership, selection andResources, Organizations,

and Social Context:censorship, data access,collection development,evaluation of resources,storytelling

and which involves, for example,Technology, Organizations,

and Social Context:social and organizationalinformatics: social impact oftechnology, technology in theworkplace, computer-supported cooperative work,technology policy, access totechnology, the informationhighway, computer-mediatedcommunication, electroniccommunities, virtualuniversities, telework, distanceeducation

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