Brief notes on librarian as designer.
The shift: Library science -> Information Science only tells part of the story. Science is an inadequate model, as is information.
The dominant paradigm: Information -> Knowledge is incomplete.
Librarians must be attentive to meaning, not just information/knowledge.
Epistemology -> Semiotics but ultimately the core of librarianship is experience design.
Aesthetics then, becomes a core concern and the librarian’s new pedagogical model should be design school, specifically social design. [1]
[1] A case could be made for curatorial studies, and although insights from the field would surely aid librarianship, it lacks some fundamental skill sets of design.
Intensification without representation – a recipe for collapse
Inspired by M. Jahi Chappell (title above), Ivan Illich (relationship of energy consumption, social/economic inequality, and specialization) and Joseph Tainter (quote below). Needless to say the arts are subject to the same law of declining marginal returns. Also note that there is immense energy consumption involved in administrators maintaining the social coercion necessary for institutional buy in from the administered.
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