Hermeneutics as a bridge between the modern and the postmodern in library and information science

Abstract

PurposeTo analyse the use of hermeneutics in library and information science (LIS).Design/methodology/approachPresents a literature‐based conceptual analysis of: the definition of hermeneutics in LIS; and the practical use of hermeneutics within recent LIS studies.FindingsThe use of hermeneutics in LIS has increased during the last decade, as has the number of authors discussing its scientific value for LIS. In many studies the interpretative character of the objects of study seen as hermeneutic in itself. This is a misconception which draws the attention away from hermeneutics as a scientific point of departure and methodology used in the study of these processes. The problem is specifically present in studies making explicit or implicit reference to a modern view of science, while studies referring to LIS as a postmodern field of study seem to be more at ease with hermeneutics.Practical implicationsQuestions are raised on the fundamental use of hermeneutics in LIS. This may give rise to a deeper discussion on the scientific value and character of hermeneutics in LIS.Originality/valueThe paper questions the use of hermeneutics as a point of departure in LIS research by looking at the research made within the field. This perspective may increase understanding of the function of hermeneutics within LIS, something which is of value both for the research community and for students within LIS.

Just Collaboration or Really Something Else? On Joint-Use Libraries and Normative Institutional Change with Two Examples from Sweden

“…Is it possible, therefore, to claim that the joint use library as a phenomenon disrupts the traditional division between different types of libraries and, if so, are we faced with a manifestation of a new library institution, or agent in Shera's sense, better equipped than previous institutions to meet the requirements of the late modern knowledge society? We might have reached a stage in social development where the sense of a scattered reality and changed relations between various forms of knowledge not only make way for new ways of doing research on and describing libraries but for new ways of performing practical librarianship as well (Hansson, 2005a). The two libraries at the center of this study raise these questions in a very direct manner.…”

Epistemology, African Scholarship in Human and Social Sciences and demands from African Societies

“…Indeed, an important epistemological question here is why should western cultures be taken as the referential against which all other cultures should be measured, as it has been obviously the case over the past? This calls for new ways of looking for meanings, which would call for some anthropological hermeneutics, which is seen in this perspective not only as interpretative efforts of the objects of study [46] and a critical enterprise [47] but to which is added other methodological constraints. Going back to the introduction where I suggested that the epistemological query on methods should be a continuous process, my suggestion is that methodologies in the African Studies, particularly the anthropological hermeneutics, should be a reflection on how to repeatedly adjust methods when limits of traditional methods are established and reached.…”

“…Also, participating in the interpretive efforts, these communities would have the first access to new forms of knowledge created using their empirical knowledge. Indeed, from this standpoint, anthropological hermeneutics is to include not only the collection, the indexing, the classification of pieces of knowledge and the structuring of disparate fragments of knowledge [46] but would also offer the capacity to see things anew and the power to change, to predict, and to solve puzzles [49]. In a sense, anthropological hermeneutics, as delineated here and in its search to see things anew, would be part of the general the grounded theory method [50] but, beyond minimizing preconceived ideas about the research problem and the data, using simultaneous data collection and analysis to inform each other, remaining open to varied explanations and understandings of the data, and focusing data analysis to construct middle-range theories [50], would add the space for studied societies to provide their own narratives of facts being depicted and for the researchers to continuously reflect on how the methods being used are capturing both facts and the narration from those communities.…”

An Evidence Based Methodology to Facilitate Public Library Non-fiction Collection Development

“…Hermeneutic phenomenology provides a well-defined ontological grounding in how we conceptualize the nature of the knowledge that an information expert (such as a collection developer in a public library) might be called upon to deploy and to engage -in a dialectical sense -with the community of users and the community of knowledge creators (Benediktsson, 1989;Bruce, 1999;Budd, 2005;Capurro, 1992;Hansson, 2005;Savolainen, 2008;Suorsa, 2015;Suorsa & Huotari, 2014;VanScoy & Evenstad, 2015).…”