Library and Information Science as Infrastructure for Exploration and Discovery

Library science as a profession and an academic discipline supports openness in research and in engagement with data and research outputs.  Librarians serve multiple constituencies and subject disciplines.  Information science is the broad domain in which libraries and librarians operate – the realm of sense-making through vetted resources and instruction about critical thinking and information literacy.

While Merriam-Webster’s definition of Library Science is “the study or the principles and practices of library care and administration, the same dictionary’s description of Information Science may be more pertinent to the work of the modern academic library: “the collection, classification, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of recorded knowledge treated both as a pure and as an applied science.”  This perspective highlights digital – such as databases, eJournals, and eBooks – and open access resources.  The definition also stresses the sharing and infrastructure-supported organization of curated materials.

At CUNY and a number of academic libraries across the country, many library faculty on tenure track lines actively engage in creation or facilitation of digital infrastructures, formats, or scholarly output.  They publish research in a variety of subject domains.  Librarians at CUNY have contractual leave days while junior faculty on tenure track.  While they plan their research agendas, contractual research leave time provides hours as well as intellectual space to allow ideas to germinate, and to pursue inductive as well as deductive research paths.