Library and information science

Part of a series on
Library and information science
Outline Glossary
Histories Libraries- Information
Focus Archives management- Collections management( Preservation) - Data management- Information management( cataloguing) - Knowledge management- Library management
Curation Data- Metadata- Information- Documents- Artefacts- Knowledge
Interdisciplinary fields Archival science- Communication studies- Computer science- Data science- Documentation science- Epistemology- Library science- Information science- Science and technology studies
Areas Academic- Archival- Legal- Health- Private- Public- School- Special
WikiProject Category
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Library and information science(LIS)^[1][2]are two interconnected disciplines that deal with the organization, access, collection, and regulation of information, both in physical and digital forms.^[3]

These are two original disciplines, library science andinformation science, but they are within the same field of study.^[4][5]Library science is applied information science.^[6]Library science is both an application and a subfield of information science. However, it is common today to use the terms synonymously or to drop the term "library" and to speak aboutinformation departmentsorinformation schools(iSchools).^[7]The organization of information and information resources is one of the fundamental aspects of LIS.^[3][8]

Library science(often termedlibrary studiesandlibrary economy)^{[note 1]}is aninterdisciplinaryor multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools ofmanagement,information technology,education, and other areas tolibraries; the collection, organization,preservation, anddisseminationof information resources; and thepolitical economyof information.Martin Schrettinger, a Bavarianlibrarian, coined the discipline within his work (1808–1828)Versuch eines vollständigen Lehrbuchs der Bibliothek-Wissenschaft oder Anleitung zur vollkommenen Geschäftsführung eines Bibliothekars.^[9]Rather than classifying information based on nature-oriented elements, as was previously done in his Bavarian library, Schrettinger organized books in alphabetical order.^[10]The first American school for library science was founded byMelvil DeweyatColumbia Universityin 1887.^[11]

Historically, library science has also includedarchival science.^[12]This includes: how information resources are organized to serve the needs of selected user groups; how people interact with classification systems and technology; how information is acquired, evaluated and applied by people in and outside libraries as well as cross-culturally; how people are trained and educated for careers in libraries; theethicsthat guide library service and organization; the legal status oflibrariesand information resources; and the applied science of computer technology used in documentation andrecords management.

There is no generally agreed-upon distinction between the termslibrary scienceandlibrarianship. To a certain extent, they are interchangeable perhaps differing most significantly in connotation. The termlibrary and information studies(alternativelylibrary and information science^[1][2]), abbreviated as LIS, is most often used;^[13]most librarians consider it as only a terminological variation, intended to emphasize the scientific and technical foundations of the subject and its relationship with information science. LIS should not be confused withinformation theory, the mathematical study of the concept of information.Library philosophyhas been contrasted withlibrary scienceas the study of the aims and justifications of librarianship as opposed to the development and refinement of techniques.^[14]

Academic courses in library science includecollection management, information systems and technology, research methods, user studies,information literacy,catalogingandclassification,preservation,reference,statisticsandmanagement. Library science is constantly evolving, incorporating new topics likedatabase management,information architectureandinformation management, among others.

With the mounting acceptance of Wikipedia as a valued and reliable reference source, many libraries, museums, and archives have introduced the role ofWikipedian in residence. As a result, some universities are including coursework relating to Wikipedia and Knowledge Management in their MLIS programs.

Becoming a library staff member does not always need a degree, and in some contexts the difference between being a library staff member and a librarian is the level of education.^[15][16]Most professional library jobs require a professional degree in library science or equivalent. In the United States andCanadathe certification usually comes from a master's degree granted by anALA-accredited institution.^[17]In Australia, a number of institutions offer degrees accepted by theALIA (Australian Library and Information Association).^[18]Global standards of accreditation or certification in librarianship have yet to be developed.^[19]

The Master of Library Science (MLIS) is the master's degree that is required for most professional librarian positions in the United States and Canada. The MLIS is a relatively recent degree; an older and still common degree designation for librarians to acquire is the Master of Library Science (MLS), or Master of Science in Library Science (MSLS) degree. According to the American Library Association (ALA), "The master's degree in library and information studies is frequently referred to as the MLS; however, ALA-accredited degrees have various names such as Master of Arts, Master of Librarianship, Master of Library and Information Studies, or Master of Science. The degree name is determined by the program. The [ALA] Committee for Accreditation evaluates programs based on their adherence to the Standards for Accreditation of Master's Programs in Library and Information Studies, not based on the name of the degree."^[20]

The study of librarianship forpublic librariescovers issues such as cataloging;collection developmentfor a diverse community;information literacy;readers' advisory; community standards; public services-focused librarianship via community-centered programming; serving a diverse community of adults, children, and teens;intellectual freedom;censorship; and legal and budgeting issues. The public library as a commons or public sphere based on the work ofJürgen Habermashas become a central metaphor in the 21st century.^[21]

In the United States there are four different types of public libraries:association libraries, municipal public libraries, school district libraries, and special district public libraries. Each receives funding through different sources, each is established by a different set of voters, and not all are subject to municipal civil service governance.^[22]

The study ofschool librarianshipcovers library services for children in Nursery, primary through secondary school. In some regions, the local government may have stricter standards for the education and certification ofschool librarians(who are sometimes considered a special case of teacher), than for other librarians, and the educational program will include those local criteria. School librarianship may also include issues ofintellectual freedom,pedagogy,information literacy, and how to build a cooperativecurriculumwith the teaching staff.

The study ofacademic librarianshipcovers library services for colleges and universities. Issues of special importance to the field may includecopyright; technology;digital librariesand digital repositories;academic freedom;open accessto scholarly works; and specialized knowledge of subject areas important to the institution and the relevantreference works. Librarians often divide focus individually as liaisons on particular schools within a college or university. Academic librarians may besubject specific librarians.

Some academic librarians are consideredfaculty, and hold similar academic ranks to those of professors, while others are not. In either case, the minimal qualification is a Master of Arts in Library Studies or a Master of Arts in Library Science. Some academic libraries may only require a master's degree in a specific academic field or a related field, such as educational technology.

The study of archives includes the training ofarchivists, librarians specially trained to maintain and buildarchivesofrecordsintended forhistorical preservation. Special issues include physical preservation, conservation, and restoration of materials andmass deacidification; specialist catalogs; solo work; access; and appraisal. Many archivists are also trained historians specializing in the period covered by the archive. There have been attempts to revive the concept ofdocumentationand to speak ofLibrary, information and documentationstudies (or science).^[23]

The archival mission includes three major goals: To identify papers and records with enduring value, preserve the identified papers, and make the papers available to others.^[24]While libraries receive items individually, archival items will usually become part of the archive's collection as a cohesive group.^[24]Major difference in collections is that library collections typically comprise published items (books, magazines, etc.), while archival collections are usually unpublished works (letters, diaries, etc.). Library collections are created by many individuals, as each author and illustrator create their own publication; in contrast, an archive usually collects the records of one person, family, institution, or organization, so the archival items will have fewer sources of authors.^[24]

Behavior in an archive differs from behavior in other libraries. In most libraries, items are openly available to the public. Archival items almost never circulate, and someone interested in viewing documents must request them of the archivist and may only be able view them in a closed reading room.^[24]

Special librariesare libraries established to meet the highly specialized requirements of professional or business groups. A library is special depending on whether it covers a specialized collection, a special subject, or a particular group of users, or even the type of parent organization, such asmedical librariesorlaw libraries.

The issues at these libraries are specific to their industries but may include solo work, corporate financing, specialized collection development, and extensive self-promotion to potential patrons. Special librarians have their own professional organization, theSpecial Libraries Association(SLA).

Some special libraries, such as theCIA Library, may contain classified works. It is a resource to employees of theCentral Intelligence Agency, containing over 125,000 written materials, subscribes to around 1,700 periodicals, and had collections in three areas: Historical Intelligence, Circulating, and Reference.^[25]In February 1997, three librarians working at the institution spoke toInformation Outlook, a publication of the SLA, revealing that the library had been created in 1947, the importance of the library in disseminating information to employees, even with a small staff, and how the library organizes its materials.^[26]

Preservation librarians most often work in academic libraries. Their focus is on the management of preservation activities that seek to maintain access to content within books, manuscripts, archival materials, and other library resources. Examples of activities managed by preservation librarians include binding, conservation, digital and analog reformatting,digital preservation, and environmental monitoring.

Libraries have existed for many centuries but library science is a more recent phenomenon, as early libraries were managed primarily by academics.^[27]

The earliest text on "library operations",Advice on Establishing a Librarywas published in 1627 by French librarian and scholarGabriel Naudé. Naudé wrote on many subjects including politics, religion, history, and the supernatural. He put into practice all the ideas put forth inAdvicewhen given the opportunity to build and maintain the library ofCardinal Jules Mazarin.^[28]

In 1726Gottfried Wilhelm LeibnizwroteIdea of Arranging a Narrower Library.^[29]

Martin Schrettingerwrote the second textbook (the first in Germany) on the subject from 1808 to 1829.

Some of the main tools used by LIS to provide access to the resources originated in 19th century to make information accessible by recording, identifying, and providing bibliographic control of printed knowledge.^[8]The origin for some of these tools were even earlier. In the 17th century, during the'golden age of libraries', publishers and sellers seeking to take advantage of the burgeoning book trade developed descriptive catalogs of their wares for distribution – a practice was adopted and further extrapolated by many libraries of the time to cover areas like philosophy, sciences, linguistics, and medicine^[30]

Thomas Jefferson, whose library atMonticelloconsisted of thousands of books, devised a classification system inspired by theBaconian method, which grouped books more or less by subject rather than alphabetically, as it was previously done.^[31]The Jefferson collection provided the start of what became theLibrary of Congress.

The first American school of librarianship opened atColumbia Universityunder the leadership ofMelvil Dewey, noted for his1876 decimal classification, on January 5, 1887, as the School of Library Economy. The termlibrary economywas common in the U.S. until 1942, with the term,library science,predominant through much of the 20th century.^[32]

Later, the term was used in the title ofS. R. Ranganathan'sThe Five Laws of Library Science, published in 1931, and in the title ofLee Pierce Butler's 1933 book,An Introduction to Library Science(University of Chicago Press).

S. R. Ranganathan conceived thefive laws of library scienceand the development of the first major analytical-synthetic classification system, thecolon classification.^[33]

In the United States, Lee Pierce Butler advocated research usingquantitative methodsand ideas in thesocial scienceswith the aim of using librarianship to address society's information needs. He was one of the first faculty at theUniversity of Chicago Graduate Library School, which changed the structure and focus of education for librarianship in the twentieth century. This research agenda went against the more procedure-based approach of the "library economy", which was mostly confined to practical problems in the administration of libraries.

William Stetson Merrill'sA Code for Classifiers, released in several editions from 1914 to 1939,^[34]is an example of a more pragmatic approach, where arguments stemming from in-depth knowledge about each field of study are employed to recommend a system of classification. While Ranganathan's approach was philosophical, it was also tied more to the day-to-day business of running a library. A reworking of Ranganathan's laws was published in 1995 which removes the constant references to books.Michael Gorman'sOur Enduring Values: Librarianship in the 21st Centuryfeatures the eight principles necessary by library professionals and incorporates knowledge and information in all their forms, allowing for digital information to be considered.

In the English-speaking world the term "library science" seems to have been used for the first time in India^[35]in the 1916 bookPunjab Library Primer, written by Asa Don Dickinson and published by theUniversity of Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan.^[36]This university was the first in Asia to begin teaching "library science". ThePunjab Library Primerwas the first textbook on library science published in English anywhere in the world. The first textbook in the United States was theManual of Library EconomybyJames Duff Brown, published in 1903.

In 1923,Charles C. Williamson, who was appointed by the Carnegie Corporation, published an assessment of library science education entitled "The Williamson Report", which designated that universities should provide library science training.^[37]This report had a significant impact on library science training and education. Library research and practical work, in the area of information science, have remained largely distinct both in training and in research interests.

By the late 1960s, mainly due to the meteoric rise of human computing power and the new academic disciplines formed therefrom, academic institutions began to add the term "information science" to their names. The first school to do this was at theUniversity of Pittsburghin 1964.^[38]More schools followed during the 1970s and 1980s. By the 1990s almost all library schools in the US had added information science to their names. Although there are exceptions, similar developments have taken place in other parts of the world. InIndia, the Dept of Library Science,University of Madras(southern state ofTamiilNadu, India) became theDept. of Library and Information Science in 1976.InDenmark, for example, the 'Royal School of Librarianship' changed its English name toThe Royal School of Library and Information Sciencein 1997.

Thedigital agehas transformed how information is accessed andretrieved. "The library is now a part of a complex and dynamic educational, recreational, and informational infrastructure."^[37]Mobile devicesand applications withwireless networking, high-speed computers and networks, and thecomputing cloudhave deeply impacted and developed information science and information services. The evolution of the library sciences maintains its mission of access equity and community space, as well as the new means for information retrieval called information literacy skills. All catalogs,databases, and a growing number of books are available on theInternet. In addition, the expanding free access toopen accessjournals and sources such asWikipediahas fundamentally impacted how information is accessed.

Information literacyis the ability to "determine the extent of information needed, access the needed information effectively and efficiently, evaluate information and its sources critically, incorporate selected information into one's knowledge base, use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose, and understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally."^[39]

In the early 2000s, dLIST, Digital Library for Information Sciences and Technology was established. It was the firstopen accessarchive for the multidisciplinary 'library and information sciences' building a global scholarly communication consortium and the LIS Commons in order to increase the visibility of research literature, bridge the divide between practice, teaching, and research communities, and improve visibility, uncitedness, and integrate scholarly work in the critical information infrastructures of archives, libraries, and museums.^{[40][41][42][43]}

Social justice, an important ethical value in librarianship and in the 21st century has become an important research area, if not subdiscipline of LIS.^[44]

See also

• List of Library and Information Science Journals
• Category:Library science journals
• Journal Citation Reportsfor listing according toImpact factor)

Some core journals in LIS are:

• Annual Review of Information Science and Technology(ARIST) (1966–2011)
• El Profesional de la Información(es)(EPI) (1992–) (Formerly Information World en Español)
• Information Processing and Management
• Information Research: An International Electronic Journal(IR) (1995–)
• Italian Journal of Library and Information Studies(JLIS.it)
• Journal of Documentation(JDoc) (1945–)
• Journal of Information Science(JIS) (1979–)
• Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology(FormerlyJournal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology) (JASIST) (1950–)
• Knowledge Organization (journal)
• Library Literature and Information Science Retrospective^[45]
• Library Trends(1952–)
• Scientometrics (journal)(1978–)
• The Library Quarterly(LQ) (1931–)
• Grandhalaya Sarvaswam(1915–)

Important bibliographical databases in LIS are, among others,Social Sciences Citation IndexandLibrary and Information Science Abstracts^[46]

This is a list of some of the major conferences in the field.

• Annual meetings of theAmerican Library Association.
• Annual meeting of theAmerican Society for Information Science and Technology
• Conceptions of Library and Information Science
• i-Schools' iConferences
• TheInternational Federation of Library Associations and Institutions(IFLA): World Library and Information Congress^[47]
• African Library and Information Associations and Institutions(AfLIA) Conference^[48]

Information science
General aspects
Access Architecture Behavior Management Retrieval Seeking Society Knowledge organization Ontology Philosophy Science and technology studies Taxonomy
Related fields and subfields
Bibliometrics Categorization Censorship Classification Computer data storage Cultural studies Data modeling Informatics Information technology Intellectual freedom Intellectual property Library and information science Memory Preservation Privacy Quantum information science
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Information science grew out ofdocumentation science^[49]and therefore has a tradition for considering scientific and scholarly communication,bibliographic databases, subject knowledge and terminology etc.

An advertisement for a full Professor in information science at the Royal School of Library and Information Science, spring 2011, provides one view of which sub-disciplines are well-established:^[50]"The research and teaching/supervision must be within some (and at least one) of these well-established information science areas

A curriculum study by Kajberg & Lørring in 2005^[51]reported a "degree of overlap of the ten curricular themes with subject areas in the current curricula of responding LIS schools".

• Information seekingandInformation retrieval100%
• Library managementand promotion 96%
• Knowledge management86%
• Knowledge organization82%
• Information literacyand learning 76%
• Library and society in a historical perspective (Library history) 66%
• TheInformation society: Barriers to thefree access to information64%
• Cultural heritageand digitisation of the cultural heritage (Digital preservation) 62%
• The library in the multi-cultural information society: International and intercultural communication 42%
• Mediation of culture in a special European context 26% "

There is often an overlap between these subfields of LIS and other fields of study. Most information retrieval research, for example, belongs to computer science. Knowledge management is considered a subfield of management or organizational studies.^[52]

Pre-Internet classification systems andcatalogingsystems were mainly concerned with two objectives:

1. To provide rich bibliographic descriptions and relations between information objects, and
2. To facilitate sharing of this bibliographic information across library boundaries.^[53]

The development of the Internet and the information explosion that followed found many communities needing mechanisms for the description, authentication and management of their information.^[53]These communities developed taxonomies andcontrolled vocabulariesto describe their knowledge, as well as unique information architectures to communicate these classifications and libraries found themselves as liaison or translator between these metadata systems.^[53]The concerns of cataloging in the Internet era have gone beyond simple bibliographic descriptions and the need for descriptive information about the ownership and copyright of a digital product – a publishing concern – and description for the different formats and accessibility features of a resource – a sociological concern – show the continued development and cross discipline necessity of resource description.^[53]

In the 21st century, the usage ofopen data,open sourceandopen protocolslikeOAI-PMHhas allowed thousands of libraries and institutions to collaborate on the production of global metadata services previously offered only by increasingly expensive commercial proprietary products. Tools likeBASEandUnpaywallautomate the search of anacademic paperacross thousands of repositories by libraries and research institutions.^[54]

Library science is very closely related to issues of knowledge organization; however, the latter is a broader term that covers how knowledge is represented and stored (computer science/linguistics), how it might be automatically processed (artificial intelligence), and how it is organized outside the library in global systems such as the internet. In addition, library science typically refers to a specific community engaged in managing holdings as they are found in university and government libraries, while knowledge organization, in general, refers to this and also to other communities (such as publishers) and other systems (such as the Internet). The library system is thus one socio-technical structure for knowledge organization.^{[citation needed]}

The terms 'information organization' and 'knowledge organization' are often used synonymously.^[8]: 106The fundamentals of their study - particularly theory relating to indexing and classification - and many of the main tools used by the disciplines in modern times to provide access to digital resources such as abstracting, metadata, resource description, systematic and alphabetic subject description, and terminology, originated in the 19th century and were developed, in part, to assist in making humanity's intellectual output accessible by recording, identifying, and providing bibliographic control of printed knowledge.^[8]: 105

Information has been published that analyses the relations between the philosophy of information (PI), library and information science (LIS), and social epistemology (SE).^[55]

Practicing library professionals and members of theAmerican Library Associationrecognize and abide by the ALA Code of Ethics. According to the American Library Association, "In a political system grounded in an informed citizenry, we are members of a profession explicitly committed to intellectual freedom and freedom of access to information. We have a special obligation to ensure the free flow of information and ideas to present and future generations."^[56]The ALA Code of Ethics was adopted in the winter of 1939, and updated on June 29, 2021.^[56]

Library cataloging andclassification
Dewey Decimal	020

• Åström, Fredrik (September 5, 2008). "Formalizing a discipline: The institutionalization of library and information science research in the Nordic countries".Journal of Documentation.64(5): 721–737.doi:10.1108/00220410810899736.
• Bawden, David; Robinson, Lyn (August 20, 2012).Introduction to Information Science. American Library Association.ISBN978-1555708610.
• Järvelin, Kalervo; Vakkari, Pertti (January 1993). "The evolution of library and information science 1965–1985: A content analysis of journal articles".Information Processing & Management.29(1): 129–144.doi:10.1016/0306-4573(93)90028-C.
• McNicol, Sarah (March 2003). "LIS: the interdisciplinary research landscape".Journal of Librarianship and Information Science.35(1): 23–30.doi:10.1177/096100060303500103.S2CID220912521.
• Dick, Archie L. (1995). "Library and Information Science as a Social Science: Neutral and Normative Conceptions".The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy.65(2): 216–235.doi:10.1086/602777.JSTOR4309022.S2CID142825177.
• International Journal of Library Science(ISSN0975-7546)
• Lafontaine, Gerard S. (1958).Dictionary of Terms Used in the Paper, Printing, and Allied Industries. Toronto: H. Smith Paper Mills. 110 p.
• The Oxford Guide to Library Research(2005) –ISBN0195189981
• Thompson, Elizabeth H. (1943).A.L.A. Glossary of Library Terms, with a Selection of Terms in Related Fields, prepared under the direction of the Committee on Library Terminology of the American Library Association. Chicago, Ill.: American Library Association. viii, 189 p.ISBN978-0838900000
• V-LIB 1.2 (2008 Vartavan Library Classification, over 700 fields of sciences & arts classified according to a relational philosophy, currently sold under license in the UK by Rosecastle Ltd. (seeVartavan-Frame)

• Media related toLibrary and information scienceat Wikimedia Commons
• LISNews.org– librarian and information science news
• LISWire.com– librarian and information science wire
• Library and Information ScienceatCurlie