17:610:580 Knowledge Structures & the Information Professions Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey School of Communication, Information and Library Studies Department of Library and Information Science Instructor: Marija Dalbello Fall2004Syllabus

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Course Objectives:

• Comparison and contrasting of diverse knowledge systems and understanding their participation in framing social worlds, moral codes, and practice
• Examination of knowledge systems from a historical and multicultural perspective
• Examination of the role of contemporary library and information agencies in providing access to knowledge systems through information infrastructures and the role of information professionals
• Examination of scholarly communication and of one knowledge domain and a scholarly journal related to that area in depth
• Examination of students' own epistemological positions and evaluation of how these may affect their contribution to knowledge production in building information infrastructures (selection of materials, providing access to materials in the context of information agencies)
• Examination of historical artefacts in the context of production, dissemination, and consumption of knowledge
• Evaluation of representational systems and organizational schemes for access of knowledge artefacts in a variety of settings, with an emphasis on the traditional context of information work in libraries, archives, and museums

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Catalog Description:
Introduction to the production, dissemination, and consumption of knowledge in society, related to roles of information professionals and the functions of libraries and other information institutions. Differences among disciplines in how knowledge is recorded and transmitted. Global issues and trends in society that have affected scholarly communication and the public's access to information.

Pre- and/or Co-Requisite:
This course requires no Pre- and/or Co-Requisites.

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Organization of the Course:

Module I - Knowledge Structures and Moral Order
1. Intellectual Origins of Knowledge Systems
2. Knowledge and Power
3. Knowledge and Experience
4. Knowledge and Practice
5. Multicultural Perspectives: Deconstructing Orientalism
6. Historical Perspectives: Deconstructing the Enlightenment

Module II - Knowledge Domains and Communities of Practice
1. Science & Technology
2. Social Sciences
3. Arts & Humanities
4. Popular Culture
5. Information Work: Professionalization
6. Information Work: Process & Practice in Organizational Contexts

Module III - Knowledge and Memory
1. Organizations
2. Memory Institutions: Museums, Archives, Libraries ( Digitalized )
3. Representational Infrastructures
4. Information, Artefacts, Documents in Context

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Texts:
The required texts have been placed on electronic reserve, unless they are already available online. The monographs are only available in hard copy at the graduate reserve desk in Alexander Library. Additional texts (i.e. those for group presentations) can be ordered from a bookstore, or online.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Bowker, Geoffrey C., and Susan Leigh Star. 1999. Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. (The MIT Press)

Brown, John Seely, and Paul Duguid. 2000. The Social Life of Information. (Harvard Business School Press)

ADDITIONAL TEXTS:

Benjamin, Walter. 1969 [1936]. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." In Illuminations . Ed. Hannah Arendt (Schocken Books), 217-251.

Bijker, Wiebe A. 1994. Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change . (MIT Press).

Borges, Jorge Luis. 1962 [1942]. "Funes, the Memorious." In Ficciones , Tr. Anthony Kerrigan. (Grove) (http://www.bridgewater.edu/~atrupe/GEC101/Funes.html; accessed September 12, 2004).

Borgman, Christine L. 2000. "Books, Bytes, and Behavior." In From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure: Access to Information in the Networked World. (MIT Press), 81-116.

Budd, John M. 2002. "Jesse Shera, Sociologist of Knowledge?" The Library Quarterly . Vol. 72 (4:2002):423-440.

Budd, John M. "Journals and the Shaping of Disciplinary Knowledge," 67th IFLA Council and General Conference, August 16-25, 2001 .

Connerton, Paul. 1989. How Societies Remember (Cambridge University Press)

de Certeau, Michel, Luce Giard, and Pierre Mayol. 1998 [1994]. The Practice of Everyday Life. Volume 2: Living and Cooking . (University of Minnesota Press)

Douglas, Mary. 1986. How Institutions Think . (Syracuse University Press)

Fentress, James, and Chris Wickham. 1992. Social Memory . (Blackwell)

Foucault, Michel. 1965. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason . (Vintage Books)

Freccero, Carla. 1999. Popular Culture: An Introduction . (New York University Press)

Geertz, Clifford. 1992. "Common Sense as a Cultural System," The Antioch Review , 50 (1&2): 221-241.

Hamlish, Tamara. 2000. "Global Culture, Modern Heritage: Re-membering the Chinese Imperial Collections." In Museums and Memory . pp. 137-158. (Stanford University Press)

Haraway, Donna J. 1991. "The Cyborg Manifesto." In Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature . (Routledge)

Haraway, Donna J. 1997. Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium. Female Man_Meets_Oncomouse(TM): Feminism and Technoscience . With paintings by Lynn M. Randolph. (Routledge)

Hess, David J. 1995. Science & Technology in a Multicultural World: The Cultural Politics of Facts & Artifacts . (Columbia)

Hofstede, Geert. 1991. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind: Intercultural Cooperation and its Importance for Survival . (McGraw-Hill)

Johns, Adrian. 1998. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making . (U of Chicago P)

Lave, Jean. 1988. Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics, and Culture in Everyday Life . (Cambridge University Press)

Lowenthal, David. 1998. "Fabricating Heritage," History & Memory : 5-25.

Maleuvre, Didier. 1999. Museum Memories: History, Technology, Art, pp. 1-112. (Stanford University Press)  

Olick, Jeffrey K, and Joyce Robbins. 1998. "Social Memory Studies: From 'Collective Memory' to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices," Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998): 105-140.

Osborne, Brian S. 2002. "Locating Identity: Landscapes of Memory," Choice July / August 2002: 1903-1911

Panofsky, Erwin. 1957. "The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline." In Meaning in the Visual Arts . pp. 1-25 (Doubleday)

Raber, Douglas. 1997. Librarianship and Legitimacy: The Ideology of the Public Library Inquiry . (Greenwood)

Said, Edward W. 1979. Orientalism . (Vintage Books)

| course objectives | catalog description | pre-/co-requisites | organization of the course | textbooks | course outline |

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Course Outline:

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