本文旨在反思现有图书馆学的内涵，质疑我们对它的理所当然的持守。首先从“图书馆学萌芽于古代图书馆”的共识出发，以古代亚历山大图书馆为例，考察了亚历山大图书馆所孕育的学科萌芽，确认出三种不同的萌芽：问题萌芽（以如何保障文献查询和获取作为基本问题）、对象萌芽（以图书馆作为研究对象）和内容萌芽（以图书馆业务作为研究内容），指出它们预示了三种不同的学科内涵。本文接着考察了19世纪初至20世纪上半叶的图书馆学内涵及其与上述古代萌芽的关联，认为施莱廷格和杜威理解的图书馆学呼应亚历山大图书馆孕育的内容萌芽，芝加哥大学图书馆研究生院理解的图书馆学呼应亚历山大图书馆孕育的对象萌芽。最后，本文在悬置上述图书馆学内涵及其影响的前提下，直接将三种萌芽预示的学科内涵置于当代信息环境中比较其合理性，呼吁当代图书馆学据此重新阐释自身内涵。
This paper aims to reflect upon existing definitions of library science and our taken-for-granted attitudes towards it through a revisit to the embryonic stage of the discipline and a phenomenological reduction of existing definitions. It first examines the nascent disciplinary focus of the ancient Alexandria Library and identifies three different foci: on the way to ensure document search and access as the discipline’s fundamental issue, on the library itself as the discipline’s research object, and on the operation of the library as the discipline’s content. It then examines the definitions of library science as espoused by Schrettinger, Dewey and the Graduate Library School (GLS) at the University of Chicago and argues that Schrettinger’s definition aligns primarily with the focus on library’s operation as the discipline’s contents, while GLS’s with the focus on library as the discipline’s research object. Having bracketed these definitions in a phenomenological manner, this study concludes that library science needs to redirect itself to deal with information search and access as the discipline’s fundamental issue. Keywords Library science, The embryonic stage of library science,
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