Can we Define Librarianship? A Theoretical Essay

Calenge, Bertrand

Bulletin des Bibliotheques de France
(ReLIS:doi:doibbf:v:1998:i:2:p:4510)

Abstract:

The current interrogation of the mission and the future of libraries tears apart the improbable definition of librarianship, dividing it between management tasks, document processing operations, information sciences, etc. In conceiving this version of librarianship as a complex process which aims to treat the « socio-cognitive pathologies » at a collective level, it is possible to think of it, in a medical sense, as a gestating science and an art, at the same time. From this point of view, the comparison with the processes of the elaboration and the functionality of medicine may be illuminating, a way to identify the fields of research still to be cleared, and to give coherence to the exercises of the library profession.

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