I stayed up all night reading that report, and then writing that post.  And I think that was the time I was sure I was going to be a Librarian.  I think I was already accepted to the University of Toronto then, and from that moment I knew that librarianship was what I wanted to be passionate about. I was so interested in the process of going through the library and doing research, and how this would change in the future.

Anyone who has followed my posts since then will know that this passion was slowly killed by that Information Studies program.  The story of the disaster has yet to be written.  If you had been watching me over the last year you wouldn’t even suspect that I cared about libraries any more.  And that is because I didn’t.

The struggle of having to deal with what Bill Crowley calls the “cognitive dissonance” of librarianship versus the information professions in our education.  The agony of realizing that I actually got no professional experience while in school.  The defeat of having no true mentorship in my so-called practicum.  And then the depression of not finding my first professional gig for eight months.  All this killed my interest and desire to be a librarian.

I haven’t mentioned it, but since February I have been working as the Coordinator of Information & Knowledge Management at the Office of the Worker Adviser, within the Ontario Ministry of Labour.  So despite my love of libraries and distaste for the discourse of “information,” I am more of an information professional than a librarian.  I take the problems of the economy in stride:  due to the policies of the government I am employed as a temp (through an actual temp agency).  While I am being paid less then I should, I look and see that people all around me are without work.  Six months ago I myself was without work.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for the position.  I went to so many interviews in academic libraries, and had one particularly shocking experience that I feel like I am ready to tell.  But every time I am introduced as the “tech guy” at my office I cringe.  I insist on describing my self as the librarian. I love my computer, and I am a computer nerd, but this is more of my hobby.  I might like model trains, but I don’t necessarily want to do it for eight hours a day every day. There hasn’t been a Master’s level professional here for some years, so getting people back into the habit of seeing this position as a professional has been rewarding.  After showing people that their reference questions would be answered, with care and timeliness, I got a standing ovation at the all staff conference a few months ago.

And yet, I am still more of a book nerd, even though books may or may not be dying.  At least I want to be passionate again about what books represent: introspection, transcendence from one’s daily life, education,  empowerment, and knowledge over information.

I was ready to give up on libraries altogether.  I did so well in school, I had amazing people who were willing to attest to my passion and commitment, and I served through various professional activities.  So I didn’t have professional experience like some others, so what.  When I didn’t get a job for four months, six months, eight months I was down. And parts of this job get me down every day, to the point where I was ready to quit being an information professional.  I realized I am not an information professional.

Should I work a while then leave the profession altogether, I thought.  I even thought that I should focus my efforts on hooking children onto reading while they were young (inspired more than a bit by my partner Xuan-Yen’s work with Green Thumbs Growing Kids, who’ve won a Green Toronto Award for 2009). And I still would love to work with kids more.

While I am still unsure whether what I am doing now will count if I want to try again at academic libraries, I think I’ve come home to my path with a whole new set of ideals and priorities.  Over this year I’ve been searching for something to be passionate about again, and I feel like something is starting.  At least I am writing more.

It hit my about half way through this semester: I have stopped caring about being in school. I am exhausted by the number of minor time-filling assignments, and I really want to get out to work and just start helping people.

If there is only one thing I did learn, it is how to find enough sources to actually teach yourself about an area, and to do so under time constraints. All of the insights I have had about this career, and all the things I am passionately interested in mostly come from reading on my own, beyond the readings for class. Except maybe for Information Literacy, which was a random class which changed my thoughts about librarianship and education.

I just have to continually tell myself there is less than a month left, and then I can take a long break. But I really do miss reading my own books and developing my own thoughts. My thoughts are going off in new directions, but the rest of my body is stuck coming to class every day.

I ask this questions as I read a great book by Patrick Wilson, Second-Hand Knowledge: An Inquiry Into Cognitive Authority (1983). It examines in detail the process by which we come to recognized others’ ideas as correct ones. It follows another really great little book by Wilson called Two kinds of power: An Essay on Bibliographical Control (1968) which has a really great section on how it is that we decide on the subject of a work. Both of these are highly relevant, and both of them I discovered for myself.

Or the theoretical works of Henry Evelyn Bliss, particularly The Organization of Knowledge and the System of the Sciences (1929). Difficult, yes. Dense, yes. Interesting, thought-provoking, yes. Another great book–this one was suggested for a class, but by a teacher which explicitly goes against the current–is Living with books: The Art of Book Selection (2nd ed. 1950) by Helen Haines. What a wonderful book of bibliographic love! Is basically a manual on how to look at books, how to evaluate them, how to weigh other’s evaluations of them.

So I question why things like there are ignored. I am sure there are more of them, but I don’t know them all. Why are important abstract works of this nature ignored? I am sure that the concrete nature of the profession has changed, but are we not qualified to evaluate the foundations of that work? Are they no longer applicable to today’s world? I would argue no.

To tell you the secret, it is my plan to glean ideas from these old works to inform my future writing. Not only will I seem well read (because I will cite them), but in reality all of these new ideas people pass around have foundations in older works.

I felt off today, having difficulty adjusting to the fact that I have nothing to do. I took myself out for a coffee, something I haven’t had the chance to do in months. I spent $40 at a used bookstore on the new unabridged translation of Foucault’s History of Madness and a replacement copy of Society of the Spectacle which I accidentally wrecked a few months ago. I strolled around in the snow, wrote in my book, and was generally quiet all day.

This is really one of the few times I have had the opportunity to be alone in the last four months. I have been stuck inside working on assignments, while my partner has been attempting a transition of careers into not-for-profit urban agriculture work. She has been working for a variety of organizations, helping out until she can find something full-time, and because of this she is always around and I never get a second to just stop and be quiet with myself for a moment.

Of course, when it comes, I feel useless. No essays, no group work, no pointless professional busy work. I have difficulty reading for myself because I am out of practice. I do have a book review to complete for the Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship (my first!), but more on future developments in another post.

I want to rest, but I feel like I have forgotten how to just let go. But when I finally do let go I will have lost this momentum and will have to struggle to get it back next semester. This is why I am out of sorts.

Just picked my courses:

FIS2127H – Collection, Development, Evaluation and Management FIS2172H – Readers’ Advisory:Reference Work and Resource FIS2300H – Special Topics: Information Literacy FIS2199H – Special Topics in Info. Studies: Advocacy and Library Issues (no direct link, at bottom)

This last one is by distance–my first distance class–and I heard is amazing. It is with the ex-President of the Canadian Library Association, who gave a talk last year. I am also very excited by Information Literacy and Collection Development…. and even Readers’ Advisory, even though I am not really interested in public library work.

Next semester:

FIS2131H – The Literature of the Humanities and Social Sciences FIS2181H – Information Policy

These two I want for sure. Not so sure about:

FIS2137H – International Organizations: Their Documents and Publications FIS2132H – The Literature of Science and Technology or FIS2125H – Information and Culture in a Global Context (links on this page are really broken)

I have signed up for Science and Technology for now, but I don’t know if I am more interested in professional courses or theory courses this time around. And, frankly, the selection this year was not very fruitful.

Things have been somewhat up in the air since I left school. A professor wants me to publish a paper, but I cannot get the motivation to go over it and improve it (I guess it doesn’t help that I am not totally interested in the topic.) First I was doing a thesis, then not doing a thesis, then doing a thesis. Then not. The professor I wished to supervise recommended that this is most likely not the best school to study what I want to study.

And I watched all three seasons of Lost. Most likely not the best for productivity.

So, my current plans are as follows. Forgo doing the thesis right now, because if I were to continue towards a PhD, I have been informed that it is not entirely detrimental to not have done one. However, I will spend the next year attempting to be published. And since my interests are lying along lines not of my department, this will entail giving myself a reading class and writing a paper on my own time.

Professionally, I have decided to end school for now after I graduate next year. I cannot think of applying to PhD programs for December, because my interests have changed so much over the last year, it is possible I wouldn’t continue in Information Studies. Regardless, I want to get that second masters, and working in the library first at a University will make this easier. And after getting settled, I can go from there.

So, after about three weeks of not having a concrete plan, I have one. Now that the abyss of anxiety is over I can get back to work.

However, in completing my research proposal for Research Methods, I was brought back to the real reason why I applied to study here, beyond the professional training. I got an A+ on my proposal, and I am considering doing a Master’s thesis based on it. I will post the paper shortly, and I hope you all will give some comments.

However, inspired by a post at Walt at Random, I am going to talk a bit about Public libraries, and more particularly the one two blocks from my house. Walt Crawford was considering the fact that people tend to go shopping and spend money when they are bored, and I’ll quote him at length:

And there are always books to be read. A couple hundred thousand about 7 minutes away, neatly arranged and all for free!. I figure there are at least four or five thousand that I want to read or should read.

To those who feel the need to Go Out and Buy because they’re bored: Most places have one of these collections of free books and other materials, usually with experts who can help answer questions and find what you can use. Reading is a great way to conquer boredom. So are meditation and deep thinking, but I know that’s a lot to ask.

I think that everyone, librarians that is, has a picture of an ideal library. Or maybe it is just me.

I will say that I have a picture of an ideal library, and it stems from the tradition of monastic libraries which have evolved to the academic libraries we have inherited today. The picture of wizened men scouring materials to support arguments is something very compelling to me.

Not that the academic library is like that. There are a lot of negative things happening there, and a lot of positives–the number one being that it is no longer a domain of privileged men, but also of women and students and (in some cases) anyone else looking to study.

I am sure that there are some people whose ideal library is the public library. The community public library is a wonderful American invention, rooted in democratic ideals and evolving from the professional and trades libraries and the legacy of the Lyceums. I think it is a grand ideal, and one I subscribe to. And although I am rooted in the methods of the academic library, because I partially consider myself a scholar or at least it seems like I am travelling that route, I would also love to move to Northern Ontario and run some small library to aid a local community.

However, I think one of the reasons why people don’t go to the public library, and why I can’t really get excited by the libraries here in the city, is that they are not that good, at least for my own purposes. Why do people prefer to go to and spend money at Chapters and Indigo (the Canadian Barnes & Noble), opposed to getting things free at the library?

The libraries in Toronto have lovely architecture. Then you go inside, and they are ratty. Things are falling apart, carpets are ripped or stained. The one by my house has a magnetic security arm whose padding has been ripped and scotch tapped numerous times. There is a little children’s section which is often used, and the newspaper table which often has people reading. Outdated computers are actually well used, but they are locked down as you would expect.

For me, and this is a personal experience, the books are horrible. I remember walking to the library by my parent’s house when I was a primary and secondary student, and I quickly realized that I would soon read through all the good books there. Now that I am an adult I have no desire to browse the stacks at my local library. The main part of the collection is old and esoteric, and any new books are heavily weighted towards very popular fiction and non-fiction.

Not that there is not a market for them, but I am not that market. When I didn’t have a job in the library, and I took a year off between my undergrad and Master’s, I did use the library, but only to pick up books I ordered to there from interlibrary loan.

And if I were the type of person to spend money without thinking about it, I might never go to the public library at all. It is just not inviting to me. And not because it is not wired, nor because there are no poetry slam nights or teen parties or video game machines or anything else Library 2.0. It is because, compared to the bookstore which has every book I could want and in nice editions, the collection stinks, and the atmosphere is one of dinginess, with a defeated aura about the place. At least for this patron, and I am sure for others. And please take this as a personal reflection, your mileage may vary.

However, I only mention it because I wanted everyone to take a look at the FISSC website, which in my opinion is the best student council website I have ever seen. It was designed last year by our incoming President Christina Hwang.

I have been considering it–when I came here I had a specific issue that I wanted to look at, but as I have been going through the classes I feel that whatever I was studying at the time caught my interest too strongly. However, as I got to the time to write the paper, it really didn’t motivate me.

In preparation for this research proposal I have been throwing myself in Information Science theory: Information Seeking, Information Retrieval, Knowledge Organization etc etc. Going through volumes and volumes of the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology.

When I started this degree, I had it in my mind to study how Intellectual Property came about, how information was commodified, and how it was sold to the rest of us. Clearly, to me, oral culture is a free culture, where things ripped, mixed and “burned” with every performance (see the wonderful Singer of Tales by Albert Lord.)

Manuscript culture was equally unbashful about its “theft.” I don’t have the quote in front of me, but Seneca encouraged his readers to be like bees: to gather all of the best of from the finest flowers, and mix those words together into a sweet honey so no single source could be discerned from the rest. Students in medieval monasteries would be responsible for copying texts as their magisters read them out in class. To graduate one had to present all the books one had copied.

And we all know where the Internet is going. There is one simple fact on the Internet: to read, view, watch or listen to is to make a copy. That copy is perfect and in exact fidelity to the original. The on the Internet there are no auras.

So, my argument is that, along with all the other goodness that print brought, it also brought along a notion of intellectual “property.” I am not original in this, McLuhan said it long ago. Many of you will have read that my department is making the transition from an Information Science school to a school of Information Studies. And it is clear that this topic I have in mind falls in the realm of the latter.

Yet, being steeped in Information Science theory, I presented a proposal in the best of positivist traditions, studying the independent variable of information behaviors of various scholarly disciplines and its effects on the dependent variable of OA knowledge and uptake.

And I was basically told it was crap. Or that I could do better, judged from the work I had already done in the course. It was suggested that I look at Discourse Analysis and apply some of my humanities background on designing something to research.

Of course I missed the class discussing Discourse Analysis, so it didn’t really occur to me. And I was confused, because I felt that the Social Science methods we were learning in the class were closer to the science then the social–derived from psychology and other such experimental milieus. I am basically interested in media theory and its relation to political economies of information.

So, discourse analysis is a good choice, except I know nothing about it. It is somewhat antithetical to the way things are done in Philosophy–while it may treat the same ideas, the method is not exactly the same. Philosophy is more about logical consistency, discourse analysis more about what is said and what is unsaid in a text, and power structures. So I am teaching myself. I have just over a week to do it.

How does one present a research proposal saying that one is going to study a text? Why do they not just do it? How do I write about ethical considerations. Or validity and reliability? Watching some other master’s theses published on the Internet in LIS, they don’t even tough on these theoretical considerations.

Any help?

If you remember from before I was discussing Philosophy as a discipline and its problems in classification theory. Here is the fruits of that discussion.

The paper in good even as an introduction to the theoretical foundations of Bliss’ classification, as well as a discussion of education warrant or consensus in general classification schemes.

Warning, this is long. Get the PDF to print if you wish.

Abstract

The following paper examines the problems of Philosophy as a discipline in general bibliographic classifications based on educational consensus. Through an examination of the first edition of Bliss’ Bibliographic Classification (BC1) and its basis in a theory of a pedagogical order, the following problems are addressed: philosophy and its relation to other disciplines, the distinction between literature and science in philosophy, and the distinction between primary and secondary works in philosophy. Concludes that Bliss’ extensive use of alternative locations, particularly in the main class of Philosophy, represents Bliss’ inability to successfully deal with these issues.

Introduction

The order of classes based on academic disciplines is understood to be the main organizing principle of general bibliographic classification systems (Beghtol, 1998). Furthermore, while other general classifications may not explicitly acknowledge their consideration of educational warrant or hold it as their main organizing principle, they do all take into consideration the needs of the academic library (Beghtol, 1986). However, how successful are they at mapping these academic disciplines? The discipline of Philosophy presents particular problems for library classification: while it can at once be seen as the theoretical foundation of knowledge in general, it also touches on all the other disciplines, questioning their theoretical assumptions (Bliss, 1939, p. 80; Langridge, 1976, p.61) . To illustrate these problems, this paper will present a detailed examination of Class A in the first edition of the Bibliographic Classification (BC1) and its theoretical foundations in the works of Henry Bliss. In doing so the following three problems will be addressed:

1. Philosophy and its relation to other disciplines: while Philosophy may have its own theoretical problems, much of what is discussed in Philosophy departments touches on the subjects of other disciplines. Should these be discussions correlated with the main class of Philosophy or distributed amongst these individual subjects?
2. Philosophy as literature, Philosophy as science: Philosophy is both the the investigation of reality as well as the study of and dialogue with past philosophical writing. This presents a choice between organizing philosophical works by the topic under investigation or by author/historical period.
3. Primary works, secondary works: Opposed to other disciplines such as history or art, criticism in Philosophy is at the same time both derivative and original. To critique the work of another philosopher is to do philosophy. By what criteria do we judge a philosophical writer worthy of his or her own place in the schedules or decide to correlate these critical works with their corresponding authors/topics?

While many of these difficulties have been raised, by both Bliss himself (1929, p. 299) and by more recent authors (Langridge, 1976), the problem of these choices has largely been left to the discretion of the classifier through alternative locations, thereby increasing the possibilities for disorder. No sufficient solutions have been suggested, and we will conclude that there are no satisfactory conclusions when working with a single notation system. Later improvements will do much to reign in the level of variability introduced by BC1 through the use of alternative locations, but none of these issues can be completely dismissed.

The Organization of Knowledge and Educational Warrant

For Bliss the order of the academic disciplines is the ultimate culmination of the historical development of knowledge as well as the ultimate expression of the logical order inherent in nature, and classifications consistent with this order will have a higher educational value (Bliss, 1929, p. 115). Part IV of his Organization of Knowledge and the System of the Sciences documents that progressive development, from the first divisions of philosophy into Physics, Ethics and Logic, through the medieval Trivium and Quadrivium and the Enlightenment Encyclopdie, to our contemporary order as exemplified in Bliss’ own system. For Bliss this developmental order, exhibited by gradual developments from more general subjects to the more specific, follows the logical order of the sciences which are themselves gradated by speciality. This order in turn follows the evolutionary order in nature, which exists for the positivist and realist Bliss in a sublime regularity and symmetry (1929, p. 185).

Scientists and philosophers recognize and intuit this inherent order, and over time this order as exhibited by the disciplines becomes more stable to the point of approaching permanence (Bliss, 1929, p.221). As this order approaches stability, new sciences develop only as reorganizations of minor distinctions, while the main structures of that order—the central concepts and problems—remain constant (Bliss, 1929, p. 209). Bliss seems ambivalent to whether this pedagogic order is the same as the logical and developmental orders, at once arguing this is a “false simplification,” while later arguing that the pedagogical order closely parallels all other orders (1929, pp. 226–7). The pedagogical order, and the educational system supported by it, exists as an expression of the social mind and therefore must contain within it not only our present ideas but also the past history of those ideas in all their organizational forms (Bliss, 1929, p. 227). As these ideas become more stable, the order and consensus of science and education becomes “more dominant and more permanent” (Bliss, 1939, p.37).

The library itself should mimic this pedagogical order: it exists in miniature as the citadel in the city that is the university (Bliss, 1929, p. 115). Beyond just a philosophical principle, the correlation between the successive orders of nature, knowledge, education and the ideal organization of the library is a principle of efficiency. That is, because books are collocated based on the inherent orders of knowledge and the sciences, when a user goes to retrieve material they necessarily will be choosing from a systematically arranged group of subjects. And as any foray into the world of knowledge naturally falls into previously delineated and unchanging categories, a researcher is less likely to travel between shelves and floors where they may become “impatient” (Bliss, 1939, p. 31). The efficiency of collocation is understood to be the key principle of library classification; Bliss’ originality concerns the relation of that collocation to the educational consensus.

The example Bliss gives is of Education (Bliss, 1939, pp. 33-4), which is main class J. It can be assumed that a user looking for works concerning Education would be more interested in works on Anthropology (H), Psychology (I) and Sociology (a subclass of K) then Astronomy (D) or Jurisprudence (S). No system can be exact, and every system distributes some concepts as it collects others. However, Bliss argues that a system constructed on lines based in the educational consensus and the pedagogical order will provide the maximum efficiency possible, as these relations cohere to the natural system in nature. It is true, as Rafferty (2001) notes, that a classificationist’s motivations of pragmatism often hide an ideological and philosophical bias. However, for Bliss there is no distinction between the philosophical and pragmatic: a library classification following “true” philosophical principles is inherently efficient for the reasons explored above.

Criticisms

This theory of educational consensus does present some problems, primarily the fact that Bliss’ main classes based on academic disciplines are mutually exclusive and relatively unchanging. This is partially a fault of his progressive view of science and research: Bliss saw such contemporary developments such as Psychology and Sociology as only further specializations of the Philosophies of Mind and Human Nature respectively, and did not acknowledge their own unique methods and discourses which had developed. Not simply a differentiation of subject matter, it is this change of discursive method which supports the actual distinctions between the academic disciplines. Pierce (1991) outlines how new disciplines are formed through the development of conceptual and methodological boundaries to the exclusion of outsiders, both amateurs and those from other disciplines. Scholars who treat similar subjects from different fields are excluded not on the basis of knowledge of those subjects, but on differences of academic culture. However, Pierce is right to consider the fact that when information professionals suggest sources, they should do so on the basis of the seeker’s home discipline, because sources from related disciplines may be methodologically deficient for those users even if topically relevant.

A related problem is the concept of interdisciplinarity, which Beghtol (1998) argues makes this structural principle of universal bibliographic classification systems inadequate. She argues that such systems will need to adapt in a hospitable way as interdisciplinarity becomes a major source of new research and knowledge creation. The solution to this problem in BC1 is to make extensive use of alternative locations. This is clearly not sufficient for the current proliferation of interdisciplinary approaches and disciplines, and Bliss’ use of alternative location was particularly unworkable even in his contemporary period.

BC1 and the Problems of Philosophy

The introduction to BC1 argues that the system outlined is consistent with the systems of education as expressed in their “institutions, curricula, and programs” (Bliss, 1940, p. 21). A system organized on those principles should, in Bliss’ conception, provide maximum efficiency in retrieving documents. However, examining the first class of the system, Philosophy and General Science, we can find two particular problems. First, the class has almost no resemblance to Philosophy as it is discussed in the curricula and programs of the university. Second, the class presents almost no rational order to the alternative locations available for the organization of philosophical works.

As a preliminary, if we are to except a direct correlation between main classes and subject-disciplines, we would have to argue that the inclusion of General Science in this class is a result of a limit of notation (a fault Bliss often charges to Dewey, for instance (Bliss, 1939, pp. 201 ff)). Bliss argues for their close correlation, which may or may not be valid, although it may be desirable to keep Logic with Philosophy and form a separate class with the remainder of Mathematics and General Science. For our purposes we are interested in Philosophy as a subject-discipline specifically and its classification and not the distinction between Philosophy and General Science.

Limited to what is properly understood as the discipline of Philosophy, BC1 presents us with no less than four and as many as five ways of organizing the subject: (a) historically by periods and schools in AA–AD, (b) history and criticism (what I will call here secondary works) in AA–AD and original works by philosophers (primary works) alphabetically in A5, (c) like (b) but with the more topical works arranged by subject in AF and AH, (d) like (c) but with works treating philosophical movements or views at AG, or (e) original works alphabetically in A5, with biographical works in A4 and historical surveys in A3 as in AA–AD “but less elaborately.” (Bliss, 1940, p. 166). Furthermore, the schedules include alternative locations for Psychology at AI and Religion and Ethics at AJ, while outlining notation for “Relation of Philosophy to x” for a number of topics under AF, not to be confused with “philosophical treatments of x” which are distributed throughout the schedules, although difference between the two is not entirely clear.

This disorganization is partially due to the difficulties present in classifying philosophical works. The solution, in the case of Bliss, is to allow for many alternative locations in order to give the classifier the maximum amount of flexibility. A quick examination of Class A can see that such numbers of alternative locations are far from sufficient solutions to the problems inherent in organizing Philosophy.

Philosophy and its relation to other disciplines

Amongst this mass of alternative locations, there are only three subjects which are proper to Philosophy: Epistemology, Ontology and Cosmology, all three being subsumed under the general heading Metaphysics (1929, p. 255). However, when looking at a list of common undergraduate courses (see Appendix) we notice that many particular subjects are missing, such as Aesthetics, Ethics, Philosophy of Law, Philosophy of History and other “Philosophies of”. We would expect to see these collocated with other philosophical topics in a classification system based on educational consensus. While Bliss does argue that it is difficult to make a distinction between a branch of philosophy and any one of the special sciences (1929, p. 256), he ultimately suggests that these individual philosophical topics are more efficiently classed with their related subject-disciplines, for instance Ethics, which he sees as closely related with Religion (1929, p. 289).

It is curious why, after arguing for the principle of educational consensus, Bliss chooses to places these philosophical discussions under each discipline in opposition to the main class of Philosophy. And while he does make provisions for Religion, Ethics and Psychology through alternative locations, it is curious why he does not do so for topics with equally valid connections to Philosophy, such as Aesthetics, which, it could be argued, has more in common with theories of Epistemology than discussions of specific works of art.

Such a division would necessitate that multiple works by extremely prolific and systematic philosophers would be distributed not simply throughout a single class but throughout the entire library, giving an extreme situation where a student looking for works of a particular philosopher would be literally forced to walk from A to Z to retrieve them. Ultimately, we must conclude that both of these organizations would present efficiencies in some cases and deficiencies in others, a conclusion which throws into question Bliss’ confidence in the pedagogical order as a necessary guarantor of efficiency. However, if we are to consider the position of the discipline of Philosophy and its subordinate subjects, clearly the collocation of those subjects with a multitude of disciplines cannot be efficient for those beginning in Philosophy and making their way to disparate shelves.

Philosophy as literature, Philosophy as science

Distinguishing the methodologies of the humanities from those of the other sciences, Langridge (1976) argues that the method in the humanities is “scholarship,” or the study of works and writings against the study of nature (p. 30). Also, in opposition to science, the humanities tend to work cumulatively, giving ancient writings equal weight beside the most recent works. Philosophy too, classed as a humanity, also works in this way. Not only does it consider those texts from the beginnings of its tradition alongside more modern works, but a major method in philosophy is the detailed exposition of other philosophers and their works. However, at the same time, philosophy tends to be “scientific,” if we take this to mean it engages in investigations of reality and strives towards truth progressively, often with little regard to the investigations of others. The opposite conception of philosophy often denies the very possibility of truth. This view of philosophy sees the historical development of philosophy as a dialogue of thinkers speaking throughout history. This dialogue reflects the problems inherent in classifying fictional literature more so than those of scientific topics.

In this first conception we could make the argument that philosophical works would be better classed historically and by author. The second conception of philosophy would see philosophical works classed with the topics they investigate. It is important to note that departments of philosophy are organized along both principles, offering both historical and topical classes (see Appendix). It is clear that Bliss understands philosophy in the second conception, as a system of generalized thought, grounded on knowledge, criticizing intuitive beliefs (1939, p. 80) and striving for truth. At the same time, there are points where he seems to suggest that philosophy is no more than “rational literature” (1929, p. 299; 1939, p. 80). As noted, BC1 allows for both ways of ordering. Ultimately, this problem of classification is related to the educational consensus in Philosophy itself, which clearly divides itself between the literary and scientific methods, and often searches for and denies the possibility of truth in the same department.

Primary works, secondary works

A further distinction between the humanities and sciences made by Langridge (1976) is the humanities’ concern with “specimens,” that is, particular instantiation of human creativity in concrete form—novels, plays, paintings etc. (p. 33). In opposition to this is criticism, the discussion of those works. This distinction is problematic in Philosophy, however, where all but the most general and elementary critical works are in some way a “specimen,” a further example of philosophical discourse, and often original in their own right even when discussing other writers. At the same time, there are clearly works whose specific purpose is solely the derivative discussion of another philosophical work. Those of the first variety would require their own location, either by author or by topic, with those works which are clearly secondary collocated with them. On what basis are we to make distinctions between the two?

Bliss is next to silent on this problem, although he does make a comment in the Introduction to BC1 suggesting that philosophy and writings about philosophy sometimes merge into one another, although the majority of the time things are “clear enough” (1940, p. 75). Langridge (1976) as well draws attention to this problem, concluding that only those who have made an “original contribution” need be classified by name, the others subsumed under the appropriate topic/author (p. 65). This is clearly a problem, as it places too much judgement in the hands of the classifier, an argument Langridge anticipates. He argues that this difficulty only arises for contemporary writers, the reputation of older writers having been already established (p. 65).

The solution to this difficulty is not so clear, as there are often times were we would want an original commentary collocated both with its author and with the subject of its attention. A classic example is Averroes’ commentaries on Aristotle, many of which exhibit originality in their own right. A more modern example is that of Heidegger’s (1994) lectures on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Read on their own these works exhibit their own originality; read with their “primary” works these commentaries can be understood on a different and equally important level. Neither can be said to be more important than the other. Clearly, if possible, we would want to class them in both locations at once. This is only a possibility in the classified catalogue, where we can assign multiple notations and subject headings, but is not possible on the physical shelf.

Discussion

These three problems—the problem of other disciplines, the distinction between literature and science, and the distinction between primary and secondary works—are inherent to Philosophy as a form of literature. As we have seen, the solution BC1 presents for this problem is to allocate alternative locations wherever possible to allow for flexibility in cataloguing. Each library would be forced to set its own policies in deciding which of the five schemes of classifying philosophy would be chosen, but would then not be able to share its records with any other library who had chosen either of the others or some amalgamation of them. Without the aid of computers this lack of standardization prevented BC1 from gaining a wide acceptance. Furthermore, while we have used Bliss’ classification as a backdrop to illustrate these problems, they are not unique to BC1 (Langridge, 1976, p.62).

The question could be raised, particularly when looking at the first problem, whether Philosophy is not some kind of interdisciplinary subject. We would hesitate to give it that designation, as Philosophy is better understood logically and historically as the rational foundations of the various disciplines. “Philosophy of Law” is not really any form combination or interaction between two subject domains (Beghtol, 1998), nor can it adequately be described as the treatment of law from a philosophical perspective. The philosophy of a discipline ideally provides the most general theoretical foundations of any subject: not just how one should design, evaluate and institute law, but what “law” means in the first place, what its essence is. We hesitate to add another prefix, and an overused one at that, to the field, but if we had to name it we would call Philosophy a meta-discipline, which deals with the highest levels of abstraction in each discipline.

Regardless of the nature of Philosophy’s relation with the other disciplines, proponents of faceted systems will argue that any such relations can be expressed (Beghtol, 1998). As a sequel to BC1, the second edition of Class A/AL (Mills & Broughton, 1991) does make some improvements over the original through the use of facets, but does not completely counteract all the problems presented in classifying Philosophy. In consideration of the first problem, BC2 does make some improvements in classing Philosophies of Language, Mind and Ethics with Philosophy, although the editors have made the decision to continue to keep Aesthetics group with the Arts.

The second and third problems of Philosophy are addressed by the use of facets in BC2. In reference to the second, the facet order of BC2 gives preference to branches of Philosophy and then to historical schools in the citation order, which would bring together all works concerning Epistemology first, then order them by historical treatment. Thirdly, the Viewpoint facet allows for the discussion of one philosopher by, or from the viewpoint of, a second philosopher. While these are improvements over the complications of alternative locations in BC1, they still do not completely solve the problems outlined. For instance, while it is an improvement to be able to group together works related to Averroes’ treatment of Aristotle, this still does not satisfy the desire to see all the works of Averroes, including the commentaries, grouped together as original works. Furthermore those who see all of the works of a single author or historical period as a unity would be disappointed by the facet order of BC2.

Conclusions

This paper has discussed the problems for library classifications in classifying Philosophy as a discipline. First outlining its foundations in educational warrant, Bliss’ Bibliographic Classification was examined to illustrate the following problems: the relationship between Philosophy and other disciplines, the competing conceptions of Philosophy as literature and science, and the relation between primary and secondary works in Philosophy. While the later BC2 has addressed some of these problems, particularly because of its strengths as a faceted system, many of these same issues continue to present problems for library classification.

There are no ultimate solutions to these problems, at least when limited to shelf ordering and singular notations. The conclusion drawn by Bliss is to leave the decisions open to each individual library through the extensive use of alternative locations, not only in Class A but throughout the entire schedules, for “special subjects everywhere” (1940, p. 23). Under the rubric of allowing for multiple viewpoints and purposes, Bliss has abrogated his responsibility for coming to a clear decision about these three problems of Philosophy. There is no clear suggestion on how the class should be ordered, and it is questionable how efficient a class with five different ways of ordering can truly be. Clearly, however, such a large number of alternative locations throughout the system make a strong case against any single order of knowledge as an objective standard for basing such a system.

References

Beghtol, C.  (1986).  Semantic validity: Concepts of warrant in bibliographic classification systems.  Library resources & technical services, 30(2), 109–125.

Beghtol, C.  (1998).  Knowledge domains: Multidisciplinarity and bibliographic classification systems.  Knowledge Organization, 25(1/2), 1–12.

Bliss, H. E.  (1929).  The organization of knowledge and the system of the sciences.  New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Bliss, H. E.  (1939).  The organization of knowledge in libraries and the subject-approach to books.  New York: The H. W. Wilson Company.

Bliss, H. E.  (1940).  A bibliographic classification (Vol. 1).  New York: The H. W. Wilson Company.

Heidegger, M.  (1994).  Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (P. Emad & K. Maly, Trans.).  Indiana: University Press.

Langridge, D. W.  (1976).  Classification and indexing in the humanities.  London: Buttersworths.

Mills, J., & Broughton, V. (Eds.).  (1991).  Bliss bibliographic classification: Class A/AL Philosophy and Logic (2nd ed.).  London: Bowker-Saur.

Pierce, S. J.  (1991).  Subject areas, disciplines, and the concept of authority.  LISR, 13, 21–35.

Rafferty, P.  (2001).  The representation of knowledge in library classification schemes.  Knowledge Organization, 28(4), 180–191.

University of Toronto.  (2006).  2006-2007 Faculty of Arts and Sciences calendar: Philosophy courses.    Retrieved March 1, 2007 from Faculty of Arts and Science Website: http://www.artsandscience.utoronto.ca/ofr/calendar/crs_phl.htm.

Appendix

Intermediate Undergraduate Philosophy Classes at the University of Toronto 2006/2007

Early Greek Philosophy Ancient Philosophy After Aristotle Bases of Cognition Plato Aristotle Augustine Aquinas Topics in Medieval Philosophy The Rationalists The Empiricists Kant 19th-Century German Philosophy Hegel Marx and Marxism Philosophy and Psychoanalytic Theory Phenomenology Heidegger Contemporary Continental Philosophy The Analytic Tradition Wittgenstein Metaphysics Epistemology Issues in Philosophy of Religion Islamic Philosophy Topics in Chinese Philosophy Jewish Philosophy Issues in Philosophy of Mind Freedom and Human Action Minds and Machines Women in Western Political Thought Metalogic Intermediate Logic Philosophy of Mathematics Modal Logic Set Theory Revolution in Science Philosophy of Language Philosophy of Natural Science Philosophy of Physics Philosophy of Biology Philosophy of History Political Philosophy Issues in Philosophy of Law Issues in Environmental Ethics Ethics War and Morality Global Bioethics Ethics and Medical Research Ethics: Death and Dying Ethics and Mental Health Ethics, Genetics and Reproduction Issues in Aesthetics Literature and Philosophy Markets and Morals

This is fine; I come from Humanities where research involves reading until it is the night before the due date and spewing whatever logical commentary you can get out onto a page. This class is necessary for me, not only because it is a required course but because I need to get at least an A- to do a research project or optional thesis.

However, for some reason the instructor has decided that it is perfectly alright to teach an entire statistics class in 5 weeks, for only 45 minutes each week. So, after talking for 2 and 1/2 hours about research in general, there is a break and then we learn stats for the rest of the extended class.

The problem is now I have an exam on Monday where I have to know 74–yes, seven-four–terms and concepts. And not just definitions: an A level answer will deliver 6-8 sentences on each concept, describing what each is, its context and some problems. An A level answer will go beyond the textbooks assigned to 2-3 other sources. And there is no recommended reading list.

Seventy-four. For all those counting, that is a minimum of 444 sentences I have to come up with. The beauty part is that each test will be a randomized selection of 20 concepts. The test actually consists of a slip of paper with 20 numbers which correspond to the questions you are to do.

The funny thing is, there are no formulas on the test. So, I am really learning 74 concepts which I would still have to go back to a textbook to learn again if I were to ever use them in research design. Pointless. I dislike memorization, my brain does not work that way, and a test which requires the cramming of concepts is a poor indicator of learning. I guarantee you that 20 minutes after I leave the test I will have forgotten every single one of those terms.

What I don’t understand is that my professor seems like a really intelligent guy. I don’t know if I am learning anything from the lectures, but as an individual he is alright. Why he insists on this format and not some short essays which would draw upon more than one of each of these is beyond me.

I very rarely use the reference desk, in fact, I don’t think I used it once in all of undergrad, and I use the one in my department’s own library, the Inforum (”The integrated library and information studies laboratory”), exclusively. Part of the reason why I like doing this degree is because research is the best part of writing for me, particularly when I cannot find what I want. So I have never really had an information need which I wasn’t eager to solve on my own.

We were told to construct a reference question which we truly were interested in and honestly didn’t know they answer to, so we could judge our level of service. For privacy reasons I will not disclose the question, lest it be tied to me.

However, did I ever get bad service. The extent of my aid was two keyword searches, one in the catalogue (the university was not my own) and one in a subject-specific database. Each had a few hits, none of them really relevant. Now, I have heard about the reference interview, but we study it in a few weeks so I don’t know the mechanics of it. But I am sure that asking no probing questions about my topic is not one of the steps. After that, I was directed to contact someone else (the subject librarian).

I have two problems with this. The first is that it seems like no effort was really made, beyond what I could have done myself, typed “keyword1 AND keyword2″ in a search engine, if I was a neophyte library user. Because no questions were asked, the librarian did not even know until halfway through the search that I was looking for something in a different discipline then they had in mind.

The second problem was that I wished I was conducting the search for someone else, because I would have been much more interested in finding a solution! The thought of doing if for someone excites me. Furthermore, in the end the librarian gave up because they felt it was outside their own area: I am coming to realize more from the reading of these old library writers like Ranganathan and Bliss that the librarian has to be somewhat of a generalist. I think I consider myself a generalist, or at least I like to know a little about everything, and maybe the library is one of the only places left for us?

When talking about information needs and library anxiety, I never really understood what the big deal about it was. Having gone through that 25 minute experience of unhelpfulness I can truly see why people find it so difficult, and why some would be frustrated.

I also have a drive to make that situation better in my own professional life all of a sudden.

My professor is Clare Beghtol who I actually enjoyed in Bibliographic Control. I will discuss this more later, but right now I am preparing a presentation about the first edition of Bliss Bibliographic Classification (BC1), plus a 12-15 page paper to follow a week later. The class is dealing with all the major systems, including Colon Classification, and later thesauri, folksonomies and classification on the web. And it is not dumbed down but totally theoretical. Later I have a 30 page research paper.

I need a good day to digest Bliss’ two books, The Organization of Knowledge and the System of the Sciences and The Organization of Knowledge in Libraries before I write about him. However, as well I have to go through all four volumes of BC1 and critique the system, including its tables and index.

Sounds dry, but you don’t know how excited I am.

Which brings me to the topic of a good book I am reading, Spanning the Theory-Practice Divide in Library & Information Science by Bill Crowley. I’ve only got through the first chapter, but this is a question I’ve been thinking about for a while. He outlines the three historical conceptions of whatever it is that I am studying here, “library studies”, “library and information science” and “information studies.”

I find myself unsure of this divide myself, and it seems that often on different days I feel like I am engaged in different things. Somedays I feel like am highly engaged with learning about being a service professional, other days I feel like I all could do forever is learn about the science-like mechanics of the profession, like classification schemes, the nature of citation indexes and general other Ranganathan- and Garfield-like subjects.

Yet often I feel like, particularly given the Internet and the information economy, I have to look at information in all its contexts, social, political, cultural, technological etc, and I feel more like the actual name of my degree, one who studies information.

Furthermore, I think that my department itself has some of this multiple personality disorder. As noted above, the name of the faculty is “Information Studies,” we are explicitly an “I-School,” and our dean is a philosopher/cognitive scientist who is teaching a course on the philosophy of information. At the same time the vast majority of my classes are not so academic in nature, straddling the divide between “library professional” and “library science” topics.

I feel disoriented here, and not because I am not doing well, on the contrary I am doing exceptionally well. The problem is that I have all these paths in front of me and I feel like I really can’t choose. Nor can I even decide if there even has to be a choice, or will some kind of conglomeration work itself out in the end.

I know for sure that what I came here to study I am no longer really interested in or I am not interested in the ways I thought I was going to be. Where to go from here is the next big question.