If we look at LCSH as a text or a narrative, we can analyze it in a way that is similar to Edward Said’s criticism of 19th and 20th century novels in Culture and Imperialism.
A crucial aspect of Said’s premise is that the novel as we know it couldn’t exist without imperialism and that when we [...]
Looking back to literary criticism in the late 19th century we find Matthew Arnold’s work, including Culture and Anarchy and Essays in Criticism, in which he advances his beliefs that literature may be judged objectively, that a perfect society is attainable through intellectualism, and that the instrument of social perfection is the state. He is [...]
Steven Bell challenges academic librarians to engage in a discourse that includes constructive criticism the way that other disciplines do.
…“perhaps we have become too welcoming, too complacent to remember that we share a responsibility to take our profession forward through intellectual discourse.”
My comments are on his page.
I’ve come up with some questions inspired by Charles Taylor:
What are the inter-subjective meanings embedded in library practices and institutions, e.g. public libraries, research libraries, LoC, authority controlled vocabularies, standards, acquisitions, policies, etc?
How are these meanings expressed, e.g. bias, equity of access, readership, marketing, etc?
What self-definitions are reflected in practices, and how did they [...]
I’m still working through articles by Charles Taylor, so for now I’m mostly going to post my notes. Hopefully, a few breakthroughs will strike along the way. Mainly, what I’m getting from
Taylor is that we should use a hermeneutical approach to understand the human sciences, that common meaning is essential for understanding, and that self-definitions [...]
I just finished reading The Life and Times of Michael K, by J.M. Coetzee, and I’m hoping to find a way to incorporate themes of representation, interpretation, voice, race, and resistance in Michael K, Foe, and Disgrace to the study of classification in LIS. Too lofty or just to out there for the library world? [...]
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