Course Outline and Readings

Introduction to Course January 8th

Module 1:       Nature and Characteristics of Information and Knowledge
                          Weeks 1 & 2: January 8th & 15th     

Readings:

Buckland, Michael. Information as Thing. Journal of the American Society of Information Science 42:5 (June 1991): 351-360. Also available online at http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~buckland/thing.html

Nunberg, Geoffrey. 1996. Farewell to the Information Age. (From The Future of the Book, Geoffrey Nunberg, ed., University of California Press, 1996) also available online at http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/farewell.pdf

Piper, Paul (ed).  Mail List Discussion - Damn the Information, Pass the Knowledge. Cristal-Ed 81. http://www.si.umich.edu/cristaled/postings/V81.html

Sharma, Nikhil. “The Origin of the ‘Data Information Knowledge Wisdom’ Hierarchy.”http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~nsharma/dikw_origin.htm

Module 2:      The Information Society and its Critics
                         Weeks 3 & 4: January 22nd & 29th 

Readings:

Bell, Daniel. Social Framework of the Information Society. The Microelectronics Revolution: the Complete Guide to the New Technology. Tom Forrester (Ed), Basil Blackwell, 1980. pp 500-549. (GRC Reserve)

Duff, A.S. “Daniel Bell’s Theory of the Information Society.” Journal of Information Science 24(6): 373-93 (1998) (Available through library catalogue)

Harris, Michael and Stan Hannah. Into the Future: The Foundations of Library and Information Science. Norwood, Ablex, 1993. Chapter 1 “The Information Age," pp 1-32. (GRC Reserve)

Webster, Frank. The Information Society Revisited. (Ch 1 in Handbook of New Media, Leah Lievrow and Sonia Livingstone, eds. Sage, 2002). http://www.sagepub.co.uk/mcquail5/downloads/Handbookchaps/ch01.pdf 

Module 3:      Information Economics and the Information Divide
                         Weeks 5 & 6: February 5th & 12th   

Readings:

Benkler, Yochai  “The Political Economy of Commons,” Upgrade, 4(3):6-9 (June 2003). http://www.upgrade-cepis.org/issues/2003/3/up4-3Benkler.pdf

Birdsall, William. Political Economy of Librarianship. Hermes, vol 6
http://pages.globetrotter.net/charro/HERMES6/birdsall.htm

David Bollier, “The Rediscovery of the Commons,” Upgrade, 4(3): 10-12(June 2003). http://www.upgrade-cepis.org/issues/2003/3/up4-3Bollier.pdf

DeLong, J. Bradford and A. Michael Froomkin. “Speculative Microeconomics for Tomorrow's Economy,” First Monday, 5(2) (February 2000). http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_2/delong/

Kingma, Bruce. The Economics of Information: A Guide to Economic and Cost-Benefit Analysis for Information Professionals (Libraries Unlimited, 2nd ed, 2001). Ch. 1 Introduction, pp. 1-8 and Ch 5 Information as a Public Good, pp. 57-64. (GRC Reserve)

Maina, Charles. Valuing Information in an Information Age: The Price Model and the Emerging Information Divide Among Individuals, Societies, and Nations. 2003 CAIS Proceedings. Bridging the Digital Divide: Equalizing Access to Information and Communication Technologies. Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. May 30 - June 1, 2003. Proceedings Editors: Wilhelm C. Peekhaus and Louise F. Spiteri. http://www.cais-acsi.ca/proceedings/2003/Maina_2003.pdf

Parayil, Govindan. “The Digital Divide and Increasing Returns Contradictions of Informational Capitalism”The Information Society, 21: 41–51, 2005. (Available through library catalogue).

Schiller, Dan. “Information Commodity: A Preliminary View.” Cutting Edge: Technology, Information, Capitalism and Social Revolution. Ed. Jim Davis, Thomas A. Hirsh and Michael Stack.
 New York: Verso, 1997. pp. 103-120. (GRC Reserve)

Module 4:      Information Institutions: Librarianship and the Public Sphere
                         Week 7: February 19th

Readings:

Auld, Hampton (ed.) “Patrons, Customers, Users, Clients: Who are they and what difference does it make what we call them?” Public Libraries 43(2): 81-87 (March/April 2004) (GRC Reserve and available online at http://www.ala.org/ala/pla/plapubs/publiclibraries/43n2.pdf

Blanke, Henry T. 1996. "Librarianship and Public Culture in the Age of Information Capitalism" Journal of Information Ethics 5 (Fall): 54-69. (GRC Reserve)

Buschman, John. Dismantling the Public Sphere: Situating and Sustaining Librarianship in the Age of the New Public Philosophy. Westport: Libraries Unlimited, 2003. Chapter 1: “Introduction.” (GRC Reserve)

Buschman, John. Dismantling the Public Sphere: Situating and Sustaining Librarianship in the Age of the New Public Philosophy. Westport: Libraries Unlimited, 2003. Chapter 3: “The Public Sphere Rounding out the Context of Librarianship.” (GRC Reserve)

Coffman, Steve (1998). “What if you ran your library like a bookstore?” American Libraries, 29 (3), 40-46 (Available through library catalogue).

Harris, Michael and Stan Hannah. Into the Future: The Foundations of Library and Information Science. Norwood, Ablex, 1993. Chapter 2 "Librarians Confront the Post-Industrial Era," pp 33-58. (GRC Reserve)

Kranich, Nancy. "Libraries, the New Media and the Political Process." Libraries and Democracy. Ed. Nancy Kranich. Chicago: American Library Association, 2001. 108-112. (GRC Reserve)

Webster, Frank. Theories of the Information Society. London: Routledge, 2002. Chapter 7- "Information Management and Manipulation: Jurgen Habermas and the Concept of the Public Sphere " (GRC Reserve)

Week 8: February 26th - No Class (Reading Week)

Module 5:     Professionalism, Values and Neutrality
                        Weeks 9 & 10: March 5th & 12th

Readings:

Abbott, Andrew. "Professionalism and the Future of Librarianship." Library Trends 46.3(1998): 430-444. (Available through library catalogue).

Alcock, Taralee. “Free Speech for Librarians? A Review of Socially Responsible Librarianship, 1967-1999. http://juteux.net/rory/Alcock.html

American Library Association Core Values Task Force http://www.ala.org/\ala/oif/statementspols/corevaluesstatement/corevalues.htm.

Associaton of Library & Information Science Educators. Information Ethics SIG.Position Statement on Information Ethics in LIS Education http://www.alise.org/about/iesigstatement.pdf

Berninghausen, David. Social Responsibility vs. the Library Bill of Rights. Library Journal November 15, 1972: 365-81. (GRC Reserve)

Blanke, Henry T. “Librarianship and Political Values: Neutrality or Commitment?” Library Journal, 114(12): 39-43 (July 1989) (Available through library catalogue).

Britz, Johannes J. "To Know or not to Know: A Moral Reflection on Information Poverty." Journal of Information Science 30.3 (2004): 192-204. (Available through library catalogue).

Canadian Library Association. Statement on Intellectual Freedom. http://www.cla.ca/about/intfreed.htm

Cronin, Blaise. “Shibboleth and substance in North American library and Information Science Education.” Libri 45 (1995) 1: 45-63. (GRC Reserve)

Harris, Roma. Librarianship: The Erosion of a Woman's Profession. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1993. Chapter 1:  "In Pursuit of Status." pp. 3-21. (GRC Reserve)

Jensen, Robert. “The Myth of the Neutral Professional” Progressive Librarian 24 (Winter 2004) http://libr.org/pl/24_Jensen.html .

McCook, Kathleen de la Pena and Tosca Gonsales. "Diversity: Ten Issues to Consider." Bottom Line 6 (Winter 1993): 43-48.  (GRC Reserve)

McCook, Kathleen de la Pena. "Poverty, Democracy and Public Libraries." Libraries and Democracy. Nancy Kranich. (ed.) Chicago: American Library Association, 2001. pp. 28-46. (GRC Reserve)

Nilsen, Kirsti. "Deconstructing Multiculturalism: How Government Policy is Reflected in Current Education and Practices."  Beyond the Web: Technologies, Knowledge and People. Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science, Quebec 27-29 May 2001. Ed. D. Grant Campbell. Toronto: CAIS, 2001. pp. 98-110. (GRC Reserve) http://www.cais-acsi.ca/proceedings/2001/Nilsen_2001.pdf

Rosenzweig, Mark. “The Basis of a Humanist Librarianship in the Ideal of Human Autonomy.” Progressive Librarian 24:40 (Winter 2004) http://libr.org/pl/23_Rosenzweig.html

Sparanese, Ann. “Activist Librarianship: Heritage or Heresy?” Progressive Librarian 22:38 (Summer 2003). http://libr.org/pl/22_Sparanese.htm 

Module 6:     Information Policy
                        Weeks 11 & 12: March 19th & 26th   

Readings:

Barlow, John Perry "The Economy of Ideas," Wired 2.03 (March 1994) Available: www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas.html

Bennett, Colin J. and Rebecca Grant. Visions of Privacy : Policy Choices for the Digital Age.  Introduction, pp. 3-18. University of Toronto Press, 1999. (GRC Reserve)

Braman, Sandra. “Defining Information: An Approach for Policy-makers,” Telecommunications Policy 13(3): 233-242 (1989). (GRC Reserve}

Browne, Mairead. “The field of information policy: 1. Fundamental Concepts,” Journal of Information Science, 23(4): 261–75 (1997). {UWO Access via Catalogue}

Cohen, Julie. “DRM and Privacy.” Communications of the ACM 46(4): 47-49 (Apr. 2003) http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/jec/CommACMdrm.pdf

Dowding, Martin & Kirsti E. Nilsen. (1998). Defining Information Policy in the Canadian Context Information Science at the Dawn of the Millennium. Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science, Ottawa, pp. 61-75. http://www.cais-acsi.ca/proceedings/1998/Dowding_1998.pdf

IntellectualPrivacy.ca. Background Paper: Critical Privacy Issues in Canadian Copyright Reform (May 17, 2006). http://www.intellectualprivacy.ca/documents/background_paper.pdf

Privacy Scan. Special Edition on RFIDs and Privacy. (March 3, 2006). http://www.privacyscan.ca/PrivacyScanSpecialEditiononRFIDsandPrivacy,March3,2.pdf

Trosow, Samuel. “The Changing Landscape of Academic Libraries and Copyright Policy: Interlibrary Loans, Electronic-Reserves, and Distance Education.” Chapter 13 (pp 375-407) in Michael Geist, (ed.) In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law.” Irwin Law, 2005. available online at: http://209.171.61.222/PublicInterest/Two_10_Trosow.pdf

Module 7:      Globalization and International Issues
                          Week 13: April 2nd  

Readings:

Castells, Manuel. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford University Press, 2001. Chapter 9: The Digital Divide in a Global Perspective, pp. 247-74. (GRC Reserve)

IFLA Position on the World Trade Organization (2001). http://www.ifla.org/III/clm/p1/wto-ifla.htm

Modoux, Alain. “The 'Digital Divide' Could Lead to the Creation of a Gigantic 'Cyber Ghetto' in the Developing Countries.” (2002) http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/background/themes/digital_divide/modoux.pdf

Trosow, Samuel and Kirsti E. Nilsen. (2003). GATS and Public Library Services. 2003 CAIS Proceedings. Bridging the Digital Divide: Equalizing Access to Information and Communication Technologies. Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. May 30 - June 1, 2003. Proceedings Editors: Wilhelm C. Peekhaus and Louise F. Spiteri. (pp. 110-24) http://www.cais-acsi.ca/proceedings/2003/Trosow_2003.pdf

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Information Economy Report 2006: The Development Perspective (Overview) http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/sdteecb20061overview_en.pdf

UNESCO. Many Voices One World: The McBride Report (1980). “Conclusions and Recommendations: Introduction and Part I." http://www2.hawaii.edu/~rvincent/mcbcon1.htm

Module 8:      Postmodernism and Information
                         Week 14: April 9th

Readings:

Buschman, John. Dismantling the Public Sphere: Situating and Sustaining Librarianship in the Age of the New Public Philosophy. Westport: Libraries Unlimited, 2003. Chapter 8 “Notes on Postmodern Technology, Technocracy, and Libraries” (GRC Reserve).

Muddiman, Dave. "Towards a Postmodern Context for Information and Library Education." Education for Information 17(1):1-20. (1999) (Available through library catalogue).

Webster, Frank. Theories of the Information Society. London: Routledge, 2002. Chapter 9 - Information, Postmodernism and Postmodernity." (GRC Reserve)

additional recommended:

Radford,Gary P. "Flaubert, Foucault, and the Bibliotheque Fantastique: Toward a Postmodern Epistemology for Library Science" Library Trends 46(4): (1998) (Available through library catalog)