Two Methodological Foundations of Study in Librarianship: J. H. Shera's View in his Latest Years

Abstract

J. H.Shera (1903-1982) left us an essay about the methodological foundation of study in librarianship just before his death. This was to deny his own idea, which was popular 1960s through 1980s among librarians, that information science should be the foundation of study of librarianship and both should fuse into one discipline. He argued the study of librarianship should go on with humanities and social science, and especially emphasized the importance of symbolic interactionism, a theory of sociology.
This article discusses the background of his change of mind by examining 1) his attitude toward information science, 2) his professional interest in education for librarianship, especially the role of the Graduate Library School, University of Chicago, 3) his academic background and his humanistic research history, 4) influence of criticism of science which attacked all the academic disciplines through early 1970s.
Then the trends of research in librarianship after him are examined. While positivistic trends are predominant as a whole, there has been adopted methodological pluralism by some of conscious researchers. It concludes that his last will has been realized little by with some time-lag.