General Works in the Philosophy of Librarianship
- Bivens-Tatum, W. (2012). Libraries and the enlightenment. Los Angeles: Library Juice Press. [Link to review]
- Budd, J. (2001). Knowledge and knowing in library and information science: a philosophical framework. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press.
- Cossette, A. (1976/2009). Humanism and libraries: An essay on the philosophy of librarianship. Translated by Rory Litwin. Duluth, Minn.: Library Juice Press.
- Gorman, M. (2000). Our enduring values. Chicago: American Library Association.
- Herold, K. (Ed.). (2004). The philosophy of information [special issue]. Library Trends, 52(3). [Link to review]
- Hjørland, B. (Ed.). (2005). Library and information science and the philosophy of science [special issue]. Journal of Documentation, 61(1).
- Kaplan, A. (1964). The age of the symbol–a philosophy of library education. Library Quarterly, 34(4), 295-304. [Link to review]
- Nitecki, J. Z. (1979). Metaphors of librarianship: A suggestion for a metaphysical model. Journal of Library History, 14(1), 21-42. Recommended by Ken Herold.
- Osburn, C. B. (2009). The social transcript: uncovering library philosophy. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited. [Link to review]
Information Ethics
- Himma, K. E. & Tavani, H. T. (2008). The handbook of information and computer ethics. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Libraries and the Philosophy of Information
Start here: “Semantic Conceptions of Information” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-semantic/
- Buckland, M. K. (1991). Information as thing. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42(5), 351-360. [Link to review]
- Budd, J. M. (2011). Meaning, truth, and information: prolegomena to a theory. Journal of Documentation, 67(1), 56-74. [Link to review]
- Floridi, L. (2011). The philosophy of information. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Floridi, L. (2010). Information: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Link to review]
- Floridi, L. (Ed.). (2003). The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of computing and information. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Floridi, L. (2002). On defining library and information science as applied philosophy of information. Social Epistemology, 16(1), 37-49.
- Herold, K. (2001). Librarianship and the philosophy of information. Library Philosophy and Practice, 3. Available online at http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/herold.html
- Hjørland, B. (2005). Library and information science and the philosophy of science. Bradford, England: Emerald Group.
Postmodern, Continental, and Critical Theory in Librarianship
- Budd, J. M., Hill, H. & Shannon, B. (2010). Inquiring into the real: A realist phenomenological approach. The Library Quarterly, 80(3), 267-284.
- Buschman, J. & Brosio, R. A. (2006). A critical primer on postmodernism: lessons from educational scholarship for librarianship. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32(4), 408-418.
- Buschman, J. (2003). Dismantling the public sphere: situating and sustaining librarianship in the age of the new public philosophy. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited.
- Hjorland, B. (Ed.). (2005). Library and Information Science and the Philosophy of Science [Special Issue]. Journal of Documentation, 61(1).
- Kruk, M. (2003). Truth and libraries. The Australian Library Journal, 229-238.
- Labaree, R. V., & Scimeca, R. (2008). The philosophical problem of truth in librarianship. The Library Quarterly, 78(1), 43-70.
- Lankes, R. D. (2011). The Atlas of New Librarianship. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Link to review]
- Leckie, G. J., Given, L. M., & Buschman, J. (2010). Critical theory for library and information science: exploring the social from across the disciplines. Santa Barbara, Calif: Libraries Unlimited.
- Weinberger, D. (2011). Too Big to Know. New York: Basic Books. [Link to review]
Social Epistemology and Testimony
Start here: “Social Epistemology” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-social/ and “Testimony” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/testimony-episprob/
- Budd, J. (2004). Academic libraries and knowledge: A social epistemology framework. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 30(5), 361-367.
- Coady, C. A. J. (1994). Testimony: a philosophical introduction. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [link to LRB review]
- Goldman, A. I. (1999). Knowledge in a social world. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (highly recommended)
- Goldman, A. I. (2004). Pathways to knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Lackey, J. (2008). Learning from Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [link to NDPR review] (highly recommended)
- Lackey, J. (2014). Essays in collective epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [link to NDPR review]
- Shera, J. (1970). Sociological foundations of librarianship. New York: Asia Publishing House.
- Shera, J. (1973). Knowing books and men: Knowing computers too. Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
- Wilson, P. (1983). Second hand knowledge: An inquiry into cognitive authority. Westport, CT: Greenwood. [link to Wikipedia]
(Note: there are two strains of social epistemology. The first strain came out of the Science and Technology Studies of the 1980s and is best represented by Steve Fuller and the journal Social Epistemology. The second strain came out of analytic philosophy in the 1990s and is best represented by Alvin Goldman and the journal Episteme. Fuller’s theory is constructionist: knowledge claims are social constructs that reflect cultural attitudes, what we call ‘facts’ are just negotiated agreements that are relative to historical and material circumstances, etc.. Goldman’s theory is realist and truth-oriented: we can come to have knowledge about the world independently from cultural attitudes, we are capable of discovering facts about the world that transcend historical and material circumstances, etc.. I am only recommending titles that fall under the second, analytic tradition. There are two reasons for this. First, I fundamentally disagree with some of the foundational assumptions of constructionist approaches to epistemology; ultimately, I find social constructionist epistemology to be a barrier to social justice and progress. For this reason, I rarely find value in the journal Social Epistemology. Second, Steve Fuller is somewhat of a pariah in the philosophy world. His version of social epistemology is perfectly suited for his famous attempts to legitimize intelligent design and he has a reputation for specious reasoning, for scientific and historical ignorance, and for making up facts to suit his agenda. Fuller’s social epistemology is just plain bad philosophy.)
Lane, thank you for making this list. Truly a lot that I have not read. It is also a good counterpoint to those who complained in my MSLIS and PhD programs that LIS has no theory.
You might want to consider: Patrick Wilson’s Two Kinds of Power: An Essay on Bibliographical Control. (Some of his other works might be appropriate, but I have not read them.)