Nr 12 tema Dokumentasjonsvitenskap 

John Budd: Vurdere teori
Noen ting vi kunne lære fra andre disipliner 
"Library and Information Science" (LIS) er nødvendigvis ganske bredt når det gjelder emne og innhold. På grunn av disiplinens bredde, er det sannsynlig å forvente et kompleks og sprikende konseptuellt  fundament for såvel forskning som praksis. I vår streben etter å finne de mest fruktbare teorier for forskning og praksis, har vi mulighet  for å vende oppmerksomheten mot andre disipliner, og lære av arbeider foretatt i disse felter. Mye av arbeidet innen LIS har sin base i språket; de disipliner som har undersøkt slike emner som språkbruk og språkstruktur, kan godt tenkes å besitte leksjoner vi burde gi akt på. For eksempel, begrepet om dialogisk dis-kurs, som Mikhail Bakhtin fremlegger, kan hjelpe oss til bedre å forstå informassjonsøkingens, informasjonsgjenfinningens og  informasjonsformidlingens essensielle karakter. 
 Denne artikkelen presenterer en konstruksjon for innføring av nyttige ideer fra andre disipliner enn LIS, ideer som kan assistere oss i utformingen av normativ, fortolkende teori. 

Niels Windfeld Lund
An Outline of Documentation Studies as a Scientific Discipline 
The article deals with the efforts to develop the new library education programme entitled: Documentation Studies at the University of Tromsø, into a genuine scientific discipline. It is shown that the bibliographic tradition of documentation, i.e. the handling of all kinds of documents, is at least 100 year old and actually the forerunner for Library and Information Science, which was not established before the 1960s along with the development of a new information technology, primarily the computer. 
 Documentation Studies is defined as a discipline dealing with forms of documentation by studying the production and reproduction, including both organization and use, of documents. It transcends the boundaries between film, literature, painting, and other media as well as between libraries and archives, museums, massmedia, publishers etc. 
 Further three preliminary models for analyzing production as well as reproduction of documents are sketched. It is emphasized that this new discipline has to be viewed as both a technical and a natural scientific discipline, as a social scientific discipline and as a discipline within the humanities in order to grasp the complexity and manifold character of the documenting human being. At last it is shown with three examples how an analysis could be made along the theoretical principles of this new discipline and by using the models outlined in this article. 

Anne Mangen
From Document-Complex to Book to Work to Text ? Some Reflections upon the Relationship between Documentation Studies and Literary Studies
During the past few years we've seen the coming and the establishment of a new discipline within the department of the humanities, called documentation studies. Being a discipline (yet) without an established set of theoretical traditions and scientific methods, it has been ? and still is ? to some extent a conglomerate of pre-existing sciences and disciplines, among which it navigates in order to establish its very own way of theorizing and doing research upon its object of study ? different forms of documentation, among which literary texts are but one type. For this reason I find it very interesting to compare some central insights within this "newcomer" to another discipline that has ? as a contrast ? been a part of the establishment during the whole century, namely literary studies (belonging to the Department of comparative literature). 
 In my article I focus on one central theoretician, the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco, and especially his poetics of "the open work", a central theory within the field of aesthetics and semiotics, originating from his Opera Aperta (1962). I show how his conclusions in this work have different implications for the study of literary texts within the field of literary studies, and the study of literary texts as forms of documentation within the field of documentation studies. Eco defines the open work of art as "a field of possibilities" for the interpreter, consisting of a plurality of possible interpretations from which each interpreter (reader) is free to choose in order to "make the work" together with the author. The open work is characterized by offering an almost unlimited number of legitimate interpretations, while the closed works have but one (or very few) "correct" interpretation(s). Eco's dichotomy is then used by documentation studies to imply that as soon as a document is produced, it is open for all kinds of use. My aim in this article is to state that such a transposition of the poetics of the open work is not in accordance with Eco's understanding of the term and what it implies, and my conclusion shows how exactly this central theory within aesthetics points to some very interesting differences between documentation studies and literary studies and their ways of theorizing upon the interpretation and use of literary texts as objects of study. 

Johan Koren
Searching for meaning or building bridges? 
A Dilemma for Research in Documentation Science
Tromsø University chose to call its new discipline "documentation science," thus establishing its innovative direction away from the dominating emphasis on information. Documentation science is based on the philosophy of Niels Windfeld Lund: "documentation studies grounded in everyday life" where the focus is on the role of documents widely defined in peoples everyday lives. Research in library reference work based on this philosophy needs to focus on what the reference librarian needs to know in order to connect the user with the appropriate documents and how the librarian can discover user document needs. Two possible theoretical frameworks for such research are critically examined: Carol Kuhlthau´s Information Search Process and Brenda Dervin´s sense-making. Sense-making appears to fit better with Lund´s philosophy, and this is illustrated with reference to a research project utilizing sense-making methods and principles.

Vesa Suominen
Hva er det som skaper den virkelig gode bibliotekar ? 
I denne artikkel diskuteres identiteten til disiplinen som betegnes med navn som "library (and information) science", "information science / studies", og "documentation studies". Disiplinens selvforståelse hevdes, særlig under tittelen "information studies / science", å være for begrenset som basis for utdannelse av bibliotekarer. Til dette formål skisserer forfatteren en disiplin som burde gi basis for en lærd, opplyst og faglig dyktig bibliotekarisk professionsutøving. Bibliotekarers lærdom ville baseres på hans/hennes deltagelse i hans/hennes kultur, den kulturellt reproduktive og kommunikative bibliotekariske virksomhet formulert som "kommunikasjon som omhandler dokumenter", og på "hermeneutikk innebygd i den praktiske bibliotekariske virksomhet". På det disiplinære nivå vil dette bety et genuint humanistisk perspektiv. En bibliotekars opplysthet vil bety oppmerksomhet i forhold til de sosiale og politiske kontekster for hans/hennes arbeide, inkludert bibliotekarisk virksomhet som en sosial og politisk aktivitet, samt de sosiale og politiske aspekter ved informasjon, kunnskap og kultur. På det disiplinære nivå ville dette medføre samfunnsvitenskapenes perspektiver, særlig "makro-sosiologiske" vurderinger av informasjon og bibliotekarisk virksomhet i samfunnet. 
 En faglig dyktig bibliotekar  skulle være utstyrt med noen særlige teknikker og tekniske ferdigheter. Dagens informasjonsstudier tenderer til å begrense seg til dette område, til de rent tekniske perspektiver, ofte basert på en "mikro-sosiologisk" forståelse av menneskelig informasjonsoppførsel, behov etc. Informasjonsstudienes ide, feks. Wersigs "postmoderne informasjonsvitenskap", kunne betraktes som et ideologisk forsøk i den forstand, at den avviser å basere en disiplin på en sosial institusjon (bibliotek) og dermed samtidig inkorporere sosiale og politiske formål. I denne sammenheng forutsetter den et så godt som nøytralt begrep om vitenskap, fri fra politiske og sosiale formål, men uten å underkjenne de ideologiske forutsetninger ved dens sosiale omgivelser. 

Trond Søbstad
About the in-between 
An Essay on Symbolic Forms and Documentation Forms
The subject of this article is the possible relationship between Ernst Cassirer´s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, and Niels Windfeld Lund´s conception of Documentation Forms, the latter designated to be the object of documentation science. The conception of Documentation Forms is partly derived from Saussure´s conception of Forms of Language, as the object of linguistics. Saussure is therefore considered in an attempt  to try to shed some light on the conception of Documentation Forms. The main discussion is, however, whether Symbolic Forms and Documentation Forms, are identical, entirely different from each other, or if there are both similarities and differences. 

Ørjan Persen
Two Perspectives of Communication for Documentation Science
This article deals with Shannon and Weaver´s communication model and Niklas Luhman´s view on communication. The author discusses briefly the possible application of these different conceptions  to the field of documentation science.  Communication is a central concept  for documentation science, the author says, and it is therefore important  to decide which role the concept of communication  shall have within the discipline. And not least to decide  which concepts form the best perspective for documentation science. 

Elin Golten and Brit Astrid Gyrstad
The Death of the Book? A comparative analysis of ´Sofies verden´ - novel on the History of Philosophy, and the Knowledge Game ´Sofies verden 
This article takes as its starting point  the extended concept of documentation. By means of this concept, the authors analyze how the novel Sofie´s World, and The Game of Knowledge : Sofie´s World  are produced, to which degree  the form of the document determines the content, and in which way these different documents  activate and ask for the user's participation. 

Nr 11    Tema: Folkebibliotek    (dobbeltnummer)

Lis Byberg
Reading Societies for Peasants - Early Democratic Institutions?
200 years ago a new bishop arrived to the diocese of Kristiansand in southern Norway. He stayed there only for about five years before the king called him back to Denmark. During these few years he established 40 reading societies in his diocese. An impressive number in itself, but what is even more interesting is that the members of these reading societies were Norwegian peasants, not the bourguoisie, as one would have expected . The bishop’s societies have traditionally been regarded as early democratic institutions, as they seemingly were open for anyone who wanted to become a member. This article tries to explore whether they really were all that open to ordinary people living in the countryside, by looking more closely at the foundations - common for all the 40 societies - to see if there really were no limitations to the membership. The article also examines these reading societies in relation to Habermas’ theory on the new public sphere.

Leif Emerek
On Some of the Intellectual Values on which the Modern Danish Public Libraries were founded
The article characterizes some of the basic ideas of importance for the foundation of the 20th century’s Danish public libraries. He is concerned with tracking down and analysing the sources of the ideological values that formed  the comprehension of a qualified public library from the beginning of this century. It is his assumption that the Danish library pioneers were very much influenced by a train of thoughts deeply rooted in the European history of ideas. He shows how the understandig of written culture and the book from Platon to the age of Enlightenment changes from a negative attitude to a positive. Thus the book gradually becomes understood  not only as a  mere physical object but as the very source of human knowledge. Further he demonstrates how a hierarchy of literay genres was established with the result, that a scepticism towards entertainment - especially embodied in the novel - was developed and adopted by the modern librarians. Thirdly he shows how the librarians conceive themselves as members of a historically rooted intellectual society, that had the task to educate and guide for example the working class to avoid the evil and to do the good. The article is a part of a theoretical introduction to a book on the history of taste in Danish public libraries, and therefore it is only a torso.

Niels Windfeld Lund
The Public Library - a field of research for Documentation Studies.
The aim of the article is twofold. First, I want to show what the new discipline, called Documentation Studies (dokumentasjonsvitenskap), is dealing with.  Secondly, I am trying to demonstrate how Documentation Studies copes with the phenomenon, named the Public Library, as a part of the research field for Documentation Studies. The primary object of Documentation Studies is forms of documentation. The physical results of the process of documentation, the documents, are analyzed regarding the production, use and organization of the documents. Thus organizations of documents becomes relevant objects for research within Doc.Studies. One of the most widespread organizations of documents, at least in Scandinavia, is the Public Library. For the Documentation researcher three aspects will be of special interest: the almost total dominance of books compared to other media; the legal position of the public library, being a part of the regular public service and thirdly the role of the public library in the local community.

Øivind Frisvold
Public libraries and the idea of enlightenment
The idea of enlightenment is still a basic term in Norwegian public library politics. For more than 200 years this idea has been used both to legitimise (1) a centralised and authoritative library and (2) a free democratic way of procuring knowledge to the public. The opposite ideologies must be understood in a historical context. There has been, however, only one published account of the history of Norwegian public libraries. This account is more than fifty years old and was written by the leader of the State library directorate at the time, Arne Kildal. His account is still interesting, but today it must also be regarded as a product of the time and as a statement of the director’s own opinions. This article gives a presentation of Kildal's book, and compares his account with two new contributions to Norwegian library history. The first is Lis Byberg's post-graduate thesis about the library societies in the 18th century. The second is Geir Vestheim's doctoral thesis about Norwegian library policy from the 1930s to the present. The main focus of the article is (1) to ask whether this new research gives a better understanding of the different traditions of enlightenment, and (2) to question whether it can give any guiding principles in the debate about the public libraries of the future.

Leif Emerek
To Analyse the Breakthrough of the Anglo-American Public Library Concept
Leif Emerek reviews the Swedish Magnus Torstensson’s book: To Analyse the Breakthrough of the Anglo-American Public Library Concept. The Swedish Case and Some Comparisons with the USA. The book is a dissertation and it is considered as a very valuable contribution to the exploration of the history of the Scandinavian countries. The merit of the book is its combination of social and hermeneutic theories to specific discussions of the founding of the modern Swedish public library - especially the discussion of the concepts of ‘structural capacity’  and ‘experience and expectations’ is very productive.  Thus the understanding of the birth of the modern public library is not isolated from its social and historical environment. It is also shown by Torstensson how the inspiration from the early public library system of USA was an important condition for the foundation of a new library system in Sweden. Only few objections can be done to the work of Magnus Torstensson. A small reservation could be formulated on the form of the dissertation. It consists of two main chapters. The first is a kind of theoretical introduction and the second consists of seven articles originally published in different periodicals. The consequence is many repetitions and that the analysis of some of the subjects could have been further developed.

Frank Larsen
Change processes in public libraries - a comparative project within an institutional perspective
The article reviews the doctoral dissertation made by Ragnar Audunson titled "Change processes in public libraries - a comparative project within an institutional perspective". The aim of the research project is to investigate how public libraries, belonging to a common organizational and professional field, meet and cope with change and modernization. Are the outcomes of efforts to implement reforms dependent upon its source of origin, its compatibility with the institustionalized value-base of the organization or the level of environmental turbulence? For comparison, Audunson have chosen three libraries working in contexts representing three levels of turbulence. In sum, a high level of environmental turbulence seems to weaken the defensive potential  represented by field-norms. The role of a reform´s compatibility with field norms is ambiguous, while the initiator being field internal or field external seems to have effect. The article is a discussion of the dissertation´s theoretical perspective and analytical promises as a research tool. In sum, the dissertation is an important contribution to our understanding of processes of change in public libraries, especially in the connection it draws between an institutional perspective and the level of environmental turbulence.