Bibliographic paradigm

Bibliographic paradigm

The bibliographic paradigm in Library and Information Science (LIS) may be understood as an approach which focus on documents and information sources, their description, organization, mediation and use. It is opposed to approaches which focus on users or on technology or management.

"The bibliographic paradigm" is sometimes viewed as a part of "the system-oriented perspectives" (or "physical paradigm") in LIS, which, in the received view, are opposed to user-oriented perspectives and cognitive paradigms.

"Kuhlthau notes that traditionally library and information services have focused on sources and technology and in doing so have developed sophisticated systems for collecting, organizing and retrieving sources and have applied information technology to provide extensive access to vast sources of information. (7) User education has, therefore, concentrated on manipulative skills. This bibliographic paradigm has underplayed the cognitive aspects of the information process that highlight understanding and meaning. The challenge is not the acquiring of information but rather the rejection of the unnecessary and the manipulation of the essential. If TLs [teacher librarians] are isolated from the school's mainstream curriculum, it is likely that their input to the information process will remain largely at the manipulative level. The value of TLs' input into the process is greatly enhanced when they are also involved in the cognitive processes. " (Henri & Hay, 1994).

"In her study of information processing, Kuhlthau (1991) explains the unconscious doubt of this patron: "The bibliographic paradigm is based on certainty and order, whereas user's problems are characterized by uncertainty and confusion" (p. 361). This tension may cloud the reference interview process, resulting in faulty searches and turning what may have been an easy, streamlined process into a prolonged struggle". (Parus, 1996).

"Information seeking is often described as a "constructive process characterized by uncertainty and confusion", where an "information search is a learning process" (Kuhlthau, 1993, pp. 8-9) Thus the description seems to advocate for a perspective on research and education based on user perspectives, leaving out the system-oriented perspectives of the so called "bibliographic paradigm" (ibid., p. 1). There is no denying the fact that information seeking is always performed as actions highly dependent of personally situated and contextual factors, but it is our view that if the impact of a changing technology on information seeking will be determined, this must include an analysis of the relationships between DA [Document Architecture] and document representation - an analysis that calls for questions usually attributed to the domains of indexing and cataloguing, but extends their scope radically.

If we accept that analyses of information seeking missions sometimes may be characterized as investigations into how articulations of the needs of the users relate to the way documents are represented in different types of meta-objects, then we are also allowed to study the interplay of DA, document representation and user in an information seeking context. As far as we know, this kind of study has hitherto not been dealt with explicitly to any satisfying degree in LIS domains. This is not the forum to elaborate further upon this, merely to point out how different DAs are comprehended by different actors, and to hope for increased interest in these questions. Further empirical investigations into these matters would be welcomed, as we base our presentation here solely on our acquaintances with the web and our observations of how students deal with it." (Dahlström & Gunnarsson, 2000).

Literature:

Dahlström, M. & Gunnarsson, M. (2000). Document architecture draws a circle: on document architecture and its relation to library and information science education and research. Information Research, 5(2) Available at: http://informationr.net/ir/5-2/paper70.html

Henri, J. & Hay, L. (1994). Beyond the Bibliographic Paradigm: User Education in the Information Age. 60th IFLA General Conference - Conference Proceedings - August 21-27, 1994. http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla60/60-henj.htm

Kuhlthau, C. (1991). Inside the search process: Information seeking from the user's perspective. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42, 361-371.

Kuhlthau, C. C. (1993), Seeking Meaning : A Process Approach to Library and Information Services. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Kuhlthau, C. C. (2004). Seeking meaning: a process approach to library and information services. 2nd. ed. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, Inc.

Paling, S. (2004). Classification, Rhetoric, and the Classificatory Horizon. Library Trends, 52(3), 588-603.

Parus, D. J. (1996). The Reference Interview: Communication and the Patron. The Katharine Sharp Review, No. 2, http://edfu.lis.uiuc.edu/review/winter1996/parus.html