Explanation and Prediction: Building a Unified Theory of Librarianship, Concept and Review

As INSPIRATION FOR DEVELOPING A comprehensive, unified, explanatory theory of librarianship, the author makes an analogy to the unification of the fundamental forces of nature, beginning with the Copernican revolution, followed by the discoveries of Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, and the unification of electro-magnetism, light, the weak force, the electroweak force, the strong force, and the ultimate goal to include gravity, space, time, and relativity into a single grand unified theory. While the analogy may be naive and debatable, the linking of disparate domains suggests a process for linking the broad and classical functions of librarianship into a framework for a unified theory. The unified theory might consist of functions stemming from the world of publishing: Selection and deselection, acquisitions, the structure of knowledge and classification, storage and preservation, the library collection, and circulation. The author reviews recent Library and Information Science (LIS) research of the type that could contribute to development of unified theory. Dependent and independent variables are identified when apparent, with particular emphasis on the importance of units of analysis to theory. The recent literature is dominated throughout the framework by studies involving library circulation or its surrogates. COPERNICAN REVOLUTION When Copernicus showed that the known planets orbited the sun, not the earth, he began a centuries-long process of linking the fundamental forces of nature. His revolutionary theory changed the course of astronomy because it explained the movements of the planets far better than the William E. McGrath, P.O. Box 534, Westford, MA 01886 LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 50, No. 3, Winter 2002, pp. 350-370 02002 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois McGRATH/EXPLANATION AND PREDICTION 351 orthodox Ptolemaic system did. Itwas advocated by Galileo, augmented by Kepler’s discovery of elliptical orbits, explained by Newton’s laws of gravity, and ultimately refined by Einstein’s general theory of relativity.’ The genius of the Copernican-Galilean-Keplerian-Newtonian achievement, or “celestial mechanics,” as it is now called, is in its extraordinary ability to explain and predict. The movements of the planets, moons, comets, and other bodies can be explained in terms of gravitational force and the conic sections of classical geometry-the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola-and their exact positions relative to each other can be predicted with great accuracy. Similarly, the power to explain and predict also improved with the nineteenth-century reconciliation of electricity and magnetism by Michael Faraday, with light by James Clerk Maxwell, and more recently with the fundamental “weak force, to form the “electroweak theory. Current efforts are aimed at reconciliation of the “electroweak force with the “strong” force and, ultimately, with gravity and general relativity to form a “super unified” theory incorporating all of the fundamental forces of nature (Ferris, 1991). Hannaford (1980),in his discussion of libraries and scientific knowledge, refers to this as the hierarchical picture of explanation, “General relativity explains special relativity explains Newtonian mechanics explains observations of planetary motions” (p. 577). PHENOMENAOF LIBRARIANSHIP What is the implication of these great achievements for libraries-apart from being repositories for the precious documents describing them? As scholars and social scientists in our own much humbler yet somewhat pretentious sphere, can we formulate theories to explain the various interacting forces of librarianship that would enable us to predict those phenomena? The answer is “perhaps,” because such application is mostly by analogy, and the analogy is more inspirational than emulative. After all, library science is not natural science. Human behavior, far more complex than planetary motions, can never be described or predicted with the precision of celestial mechanics. But we should like to try, even though our theories may never be elegant or exact. For this discussion, an informal and simple (some would say simplistic) definition of theory can be used: A set of variables that may explain and predict another variable. A unified theory is simply one that reconciles or incorporates other theories. For a more formal definition of theory in the context of librarianship, refer to the taxonomy of theory by Grover & Glazier (1986) and their broader update of the taxonomy in this issue (Glazier & Grover, 2002). Consider some of the traditional areas of concern to librarianship: Publishing, acquisitions, storage, preservation, classification and organization of knowledge, and collections and circulation. While not necessarily 352 LIBRARYTRENDS/WINTER 2 0 0 2 complete, few question these as basic to the profession. Most recently, Curran (2001) has reconfirmed them as those aspects of information that library and information scientists are most concerned with, adding origin, dissemination, properties, retrieval, and interpretation of information. No doubt, this list could be even further refined or expanded. Curran offers many questions pertaining to each area, the answers and alternatives to which the profession should continue to seek. His questions (how, who, what) are all valid when attempting to describe activities. We, those in the Library and Information Science (LIS) profession, should like to have a more precise, perhaps mathematical understanding of how these areas are interconnected, and how the activities or outcomes of each may be explained or predicted in terms of inputs from others. While recognizing that Curran and others may prefer the more detailed outline or one altogether different, this paper is confined to the more limited one. However, whatever the framework, it is important to note that there is a sense of flow or connectivity from one domain to another, just as there is in everyday practical processing and use of library materials. Within the context of these activities, but beyond their mere description, what do we mean by “explanation” and “prediction?” What do we want to explain and what is there to predict in librarianship, and why should we want to predict it? One definition of explanation-a much more complex concept than can be explored here-is simply accounting for one phenomenon in terms of others. A good explanation is one that provides understanding. More specifically, it is one that, given a set of conditions, enables us to predict another with reasonable or satisfying confidence. In every area-acquisitions, storage, preservation, classification of knowledge, collections, reference work, and so on-there is something that varies and is dependent on something else, so that we should be interested in building theories that would enable us to explain and predict those things that vary in each area. Intuitively, we know that each area is, to some extent, dependent on some other, either directly, in a linear flow, beginning to end, or in a more complex multidimensional way, in which communication, or the workflow, may take many paths. Consider some typical activities in each of the functional areas listed above-how they might be explained by some other area, how specific theories could be built for each area, and then finally how they might ultimately be integrated into a unified theory. Figure 1,modeled after a diagram, “Explaining the Forces of Nature,” published in the New York Times (Broad, 1984),and reproduced in McGrath (1995b, see note 1),shows these traditional areas of librarianship with hypothetical connections (dotted lines) between them to indicate relationships not firmly established in any explanatory or predictive sense. MCGRATH/EXPLANATION AND PREDICTION 353