LIBR 610: THEORETICAL AND RESEARCH FOUNDATIONS OF LIBRARY/INFORMATION STUDIES – Course Syllabus (3)
Program: PhD Program
Year: Winter Session 2009-2010, terms1-2
Location: IKBLC 425
Time: Tuesdays 1:00-4:00 pm
Instructor: Luanne Freund
Office location: IKBLC 425
Office phone: (604) 822-0825
Office hours:
E-mail address: luanne.freund@ubc.ca
Course Goals: To explore the theoretical foundations and core subject areas within library and information science, and develop an understanding of the field from an academic and research perspective.
Course Objectives:
* To gain an understanding of the core literature of library and information science
* To gain an understanding of the university as a social and cultural structure and the place of the PhD within it
* To understand the role of research and publication in the university and in society in general
* To understand the nature and role of research and publication in library, archival, and information studies
* To gain skills in academic writing and presentation.
Course Topics: See course schedule.
Course Restrictions: Limited to students in the PhD program
Format of the course: Seminars and discussion, bi-weekly meetings
Required and Recommended Reading :
Term 1: Required
* All bi-weekly readings are required. Please make an early effort to locate copies of the required readings, as some of the books are older and not readily available.
Term 2: Required
* Textbook: D. Kennedy (1997). Academic Duty. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
* Weekly readings as specified in schedule.
Course Assignments, Due Dates and Weight in relation to Term 1 mark.
Term 1
Assignment |
Due Date |
Value |
Seminar Presentation |
October 6 or 20 |
20% |
Term Paper Proposal |
November 3 |
10% |
Term Paper |
December 4 |
50% |
Seminar Contributions |
NA |
20% |
- Seminar Presentation : Students will prepare and deliver a 45 minute presentation on one of the topics in October.
- Major Paper and Proposal : Students will write a major term paper related to one or more of the areas covered in the course. Possible topics should be proposed by the students and discussed with the instructor. A formal term paper proposal will be due in Week 9 (November 5).
- Seminar Contributions : Students are expected to come to each meeting prepared to introduce 2-3 ideas for discussion and with a list of additional questions based on the readings. This may require some background reading in addition to the assigned readings.
Course Schedule TERM 1 – Tuesdays, 1-4
Date |
Topics |
Week 1 Sept. 15 |
Introduction – plans and expectations for the course
|
Week 3 Sept. 22 |
Topic I: Information Science
Brookes, B.C. (1980). The foundations of information science, Part I: Philosophical aspects. Journal of Information Science 2, 125-133; Part II: Quantitative Aspects. Journal of Information Science 2, 209-221.
Capurro, R. (1992). Foundations of Information Science: review and perspectives. http://www.capurro.de/tampere91.htm
Saracevic, Tevko (1999) Information Science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 50 (12), 1051–1063.
|
Week 4 Sept. 29 |
Reading – Optional Meeting |
Week 5 Oct. 6 |
Topic II: Knowledge Organization
Wilson, Patrick (1968). Two Kinds of Power: An Essay on Bibliographical Control. Berkeley: University of California Press .
Bowker, Geoffrey C. & Star, Susan Leigh (1999) Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. |
Week 6 Oct. 13 |
Reading - Optional Meeting |
Week 7 Oct. 20 |
Topic III: Bibliometrics
de Solla Price, Derek J. (1963). Little Science, Big Science, New York: Columbia University Press.
Garfield E. (1977) Citation Indexing—Its Theory and Application in Science, Technology, and Humanities. Philadelphia: ISI Press. http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/ci/title.pdf
Wolfram, Dietmar. (2003). Applied Informetrics for Information Retrieval Research. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited. (Chapter 3: Informetrics - p.39-66). |
Week 8 Oct. 27 |
Reading – Optional Meeting |
Week 9 Nov. 3 |
Topic IV: Information Seeking & Retrieval
Blair, David C. & M. E. Maron (1985) An Evaluation of Retrieval Effectiveness for a Full-Text Document-Retrieval System. Communications of the ACM 28 (3): 289-299.
Blair, David C. (1990). Language and Representation in Information Retrieval. Amsterdam: Elsevier. (esp. Chaps 1,4, 6)
(Optional) Blair, David C. (1996). STAIRS Redux: Thoughts on the STAIRS Evaluation, Ten Years after. Journal of the American Society of Information Science 47 (1): 4-22.
Ingwersen, Peter. (1992). Information Retrieval Interaction. London: Taylor Graham. Full text available online: http://vip.db.dk/pi/iri/index.htm |
Week 10 Nov. 10 |
Reading – Optional Meeting |
Week 11 Nov. 17 |
Topic V: Sociology and Epistemology
Jesse Shera (1970). Sociological Foundations of Librarianship. New York, Asia Pub. House Budd, John. 2001.
Budd, John (2001) Knowledge and Knowing in Library and Information Science: A Philosophical Framework. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow.
|
Week 12 Nov. 24 |
Reading – Optional Meeting |
Week 13 Dec. 1 |
Topic V: Social Informatics
Brown, John Seely & Duguid, Paul (2000) The Social Life of Information. Boston MA, Harvard Business School Press.
Kling, Rob (2000) Social Informatics: A New Perspective on Social Research about Information and Communication Technologies. Prometheus, 18(3). Available online at: http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/594886_770885140_713692067.pdf |
Term 2
Class meetings in Term 2 will focus on the practice of research in library and information science. Readings will be drawn from Academic Duty and supplemented by scholarly journal articles. Topics, readings and assignments will be distributed at the start of the Spring term.
Attendance:
The calendar states : “Regular attendance is expected of students in all their classes (including lectures, laboratories, tutorials, seminars, etc.). Students who neglect their academic work and assignments may be excluded from the final examinations. Students who are unavoidably absent because of illness or disability should report to their instructors on return to classes.”
Evaluation: All assignments will be marked using the evaluative criteria given on the SLAIS web site .
Prior arrangements must be made with the instructor for assignment extensions. Late penalties may be imposed; this will be discussed when extensions are requested.
Written & Spoken English Requirement : Written and spoken work may receive a lower mark, if it is, in the opinion of the instructor, deficient in English.
Disability Accommodation: The University accommodates students with disabilities who have registered with the Disability Resource Centre [ http://www.students.ubc.ca/access/drc.cfm ]. You must register with the Disability Resource Centre to be granted special accommodations for any on-going conditions.
Religious Accommodation : The University accommodates students whose religious obligations conflict with attendance, submitting assignments, or completing scheduled tests and examinations. Please let your instructor know in advance, preferably in the first week of class, if you will require any accommodation on these grounds. Students who plan to be absent for varsity athletics, family obligations, or other similar commitments, cannot assume they will be accommodated, and should discuss their commitments with the instructor before the course drop date. UBC policy on Religious Holidays: http://www.universitycounsel.ubc.ca/policies/policy65.pdf
Academic Dishonesty: Please review the UBC Calendar Academic regulations for the University policy on cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of academic dishonesty: http://www.students.ubc.ca/calendar/index.cfm?tree=3,54,111,959
Also visit and review the contents of these two resources: Plagiarism Resource Centre: For Students: http://www.library.ubc.ca/home/plagiarism/welcome.html and Plagiarism Avoided: Taking Responsibility For Your Work: http://www.arts.ubc.ca/Plagiarism_Avoided.373.0.html for useful information on avoiding plagiarism and on correct documentation practice. Students are held responsible for knowing and following all University regulations regarding academic dishonesty. If a student does not know how to properly cite a source or what constitutes proper use of a source it is the student's personal responsibility to obtain the needed information and to apply it within University guidelines and policies. If evidence of academic dishonesty is found in a course assignment, previously submitted work in this course may be reviewed for possible academic dishonesty and grades modified as appropriate. University policy requires that all incidents of academic dishonesty must be forwarded to the Dean’s office for review and possible action.
