[Asis-l] Fwd: Journal LIS Critique published new issue

M.J. Menou michel.menou at orange.fr
Sat Nov 27 10:50:38 EST 2010



-------- Original Message --------
Subject:     Journal LIS Critique published new issue
Date:     Thu, 25 Nov 2010 21:18:33 -0600
From:     Zapopan Martín Muela Meza <zapopanmuela at GMAIL.COM>



**

*Dear colleagues,*

**

*

*/
/*

*/Library and Information Science Critique : Journal of the Sciences of 
Information Recorded in Documents/*

*//**reaches its third volumen
*

*launching its double number
*

*(volume 2, no. 3 & volume 3, no. 1).*


**

*We invite you to read it and make contributions to the next numbers.*


**

*Deadline for the next issue: Dec 30, 2010 (Vol 3 No2).*

*Date of publication: Jan 30, 2011
*


**

*English site:*

*http://sites.google.com/site/criticabibliotecologica/thirdissue
*


**

*Thank you for your kind attention!*


Happy Thanksgiving Day!


**

*Sincerely,*


**

*Dr. Zapopan M. Muela-Meza*

*PhD Information Studies, University of Sheffiled, UK*

*Assistant Professor, UANL, Mexico*

*Director, Editor in Chief, and Founder, LIS Critique
*

*

*Table of Contents*

* *

*Open Access free of charge and direct of the full issue*

*  | PDF 
<http://eprints.rclis.org/19328/1/critica.biblio.final.vol.2.no.2%26vol.3.no.1.pdf> 
|**[Only in Spanish]**[110 pp.] [1.59 MB]**

*

*Editorial*

* *

*Editorial*

*

*/Library and Information Science Critique /**reaches its third volumen 
launching its double number (volume 2, no. 3 & volume 3, no. 1), **by: 
Zapopan Martín Muela-Meza (MEXICO)*

* |full text  pdf 
<http://eprints.rclis.org/19375/1/c.b.vol2no2-vol3no1.muela-meza.edi_eng.pdf>** 
|** [English version]**
*
Articles*

* *

*The /social class struggles concept /with an interdisciplinary 
approach: a paramount concept for research in library and information 
science (LIS), **by: Zapopan Martin Muela-Meza (MEXICO)**, p. 8. ** *

** |full text  pdf 
<http://eprints.rclis.org/19329/1/c.b.vol.2.no.2%26vol.3.no.1.muela-meza.art.pdf>** 
|** [Original in English]**

*

*Abstract*

* *

This paper analyses the /social class struggles /concept with an 
interdisciplinary approach to be used by theorists and practitioners of 
library and information science (LIS). This concept emerged as part of 
the theoretical framework employed by the author in his doctoral thesis 
(Muela-Meza, 2010): /An Application of Community Profiling to Analyse 
Community Information Needs, and Providers: Perceptions from the People 
of the Broomhall Neighbourhood of Sheffield, UK. /This concept is 
complemented from philosophy (Marx and Engels, [1848] 1976a), and the 
natural sciences (Hauser, 2006; Sagan and Druyan, 1992), and it served 
the author to understand better the bigger dimensions of the underlying 
issues behind social classes and human conflicts. It also served to 
understand better the contradictions between people (e.g. LIS users with 
contradictory and mutually exclusive information needs to be provided by 
libraries and other institutions of information recorded in documents), 
and how these intensify when these are interrelated with the social 
class they belong to (Muela-Meza, 2007). This paper also criticises some 
competing views whose proponents by pretending fallaciously and 
deceitfully to deny the presence of social class divides in society, 
such as those rhetorical ploys of post-modernism that propose 
capitalist-class-driven ideologues of  “community cohesion” based on 
“social capital” (Putnam, 1999). It shows evidence of how those 
followers (e.g. Pateman, 2006; Contreras Contreras, 2004; Bryson, 
Usherwood and Proctor, 2003)of capitalist-class ideologues, by doing so 
they aligned their discourse to that of dominance hierarchies and 
hegemony against working class people, in LIS and other sciences, and 
the humanities. It also criticises the postmodern pseudoscience because 
it pretends to undermine the logical rationality fundamental in LIS and 
all other sciences. It recommends that LIS theorists and practitioners 
employ the /social class struggles /concept as configured here in order 
to understand better contradictions, conflicts, and struggles within LIS 
theory and practice, and also to search for broader epistemological aims 
such as /justice/ and /wisdom/ (Fleissner and Hofkirchner, 1998), 
concealed by the capitalist or bourgeois and middle classes for their 
benefit against working class.

* *

*Keywords*

* *

Sciences of Information Recorded in Documents; Library and Information 
Science (LIS) -- Epistemology; LIS -- Methodology; social class; social 
class struggles; dominance hierarchies; submission hierarchies; 
hegemony; critical and sceptical thinking; logical fallacies; rhetorical 
ploys.

*

* *

*Banning of reading in Cordoba (Argentina). Elements for its study, 
**by: Federico Zeballos (ARGENTINA)**, p. 37.*

* *|full text  pdf** |** [Only in Spanish]**

*

*Abstract*

* *

This work “*The banning of reading in Córdoba. Elements for its study” 
*intents to provide elements for the knowledge about the mechanism of 
banning of reading in the Córdoba’s libraries during the recent past. 
Are presented several cases of censorship in different type of 
libraries: university, public, school, etc. Besides are included two 
cases of public burning of “banner books” in this city. The 
investigation has may testimonies of librarians, photographies, 
institutionals resolutions, regulations notes, etc.

* *

*Keywords*



Córdoba; reading; libraries; censorship; dictatorship; destruction of 
book; burning books; banned books.

*


*Universidades, bibliotecas, imprentas y cárceles: espacios de 
educación, lectura y obra teórica del intelectual revolucionario del 
proletariado,****por: Felipe Meneses Tello (MÉXICO)**, p. 52.*


** |full text  pdf 
<http://eprints.rclis.org/19354/1/c.b.vol.2.no.2-vol.3.no.1.meneses.pdf>** 
|** [Only in Spanish]**

*


       *Abstract *

* *

*The author analyzes in this article (“Universities, libraries, presses, 
and jails: spaces of education, reading, and theoretical work of the 
revolutionary proletarian intellectual”) the main institutional 
(universities, libraries, presses, and jail) resources that 
revolutionary proletarian intellectuals have used throughout their lives 
to study, research, and produce a large number of bibliographic tools. 
In this way, instruction and theoretical possession by the proletarian 
/intelligentsia/ can be thought about from a documentary context, 
characterized by specific situations: secrecy, persecution, 
imprisonment, and exile, among other possibilities. *

* *

*Key Words*

Intellectual revolutionaries, Proletariat, Universities, Libraries, 
Presses, Jails.

*
* *

*Ensayos*

*Tendencias conformistas en el discurso y en la realidad laboral de los 
bibliotecarios en México**, **por: José Ángel González Castillo; Carlos 
Alberto Martínez Hernández (MÉXICO)**, p. 64.*


** |full text  pdf 
<http://eprints.rclis.org/19353/1/c.b.vol.2.no.2%26vol.3.no.1.gonzalez-martinez.pdf>** 
|** [Only in Spanish]**


*

*Abstract*



This paper criticizes a rooted tendency and attitude of conformism that 
has been exposed both in library practice and debate. It also criticizes 
the enthusiast acceptance of the dominant establishment and the active 
defense of capitalistic impositions that are systematically published in 
LIS documents, and implemented in library routinary strategies through 
all the levels of LIS practice. It also criticizes various LIS 
institutions ranging from the General Direction of Libraries of the 
Mexican National Network of Public Libraries, until the LIS schools that 
foster such conformist speech in LIS that tramples on labour rights, 
that triviliazes LIS curricula and that abandons this discipline in a 
theoretical and critical void.



*Keywords*



Mexico; Library and Information Science (LIS); conformist librarianship; 
pro-capitalistic driven librarianship; critique to capitalism; critique 
to conformist librarianship.

*
* *

*¿Y si el bibliotecario fuera académico? La problemática laboral de los 
bibliotecarios que trabajan en universidades públicas estatales**, 
**por: Horacio Cárdenas Zardoni (MÉXICO)**, p. 78.*


** |full text  pdf 
<http://eprints.rclis.org/19344/1/c.b.vol.2.no.2%26vol.3.no.1.cardenas.pdf>** 
|** [Only in Spanish]**


*

*Abstract*

* *

The librarian is an important position for the functioning of libraries 
belonging to institutions of higher education. Library personnel is in 
charge of planning, organizing,  management, operation and giving 
information services  in the universities, it is a fundamental part of 
the teaching/learning process, in grade and postgraduate education, of 
the knowledge generation activities, and culture diffusion. The 
university librarian plays an instrumental part in the university 
curriculum, and a relevant role in the rhetoric of society of 
information/society of knowledge, offering from beginners instruction to 
specialized searches that facilitate the scientific work, technological 
development and contextualization of these in the academic information 
universe. Despite of all this and of being in charge of guarding, 
capitalization and exploitation of  important economic investments on  
the part of the Government of the Republic and the institutions of 
higher education in Mexico, the librarian is not considered an 
academician, merely an administrative worker, without the recognition 
and advantages of the first, and without the betterment possibilities of 
the second.



*Key words*

* *

University libraries; university librarians; librarians; academic 
personnel; administrative personnel; salary tabulators; universities; 
institutions of higher education.

*
* *

*Libros de la UNAM a través de Google: dos años después**, **por: 
Gonzalo Clemente Lara Pacheco (MÉXICO)**, p. 104.*


* |full text  pdf 
<http://eprints.rclis.org/15312/1/c.b.vol.1.no.1.art.muela-meza.pdf>** 
|** [Only in Spanish]*


*Abstract*

* *

Google corporation digitizes books published by the Mexico National 
Autonomous University (UNAM) since 2007. The corporation agreed not to 
charge anything for this service; instead, it was informed through some 
communication media that UNAM would be benefited in two senses: a) books 
could be consulted (just a few pages) in the site of Google books, and 
b) the university community would have access to the digitized titles, 
in full text versions, through the libraries of UNAM. As it will be 
shown, more than two years after this project began, UNAM community 
still does not have access to the full text version of the books 
published by UNAM that Google digitsize.

* *

*Keywords*

* *

Google, digital library, National Autonomous University of Mexico, 
agreements

*Editorial*

*/ /*

*/Library and Information Science Critique /**reaches its third volumen 
launching its double number (volume 2, no. 3 & volume 3, no. 1), **by: 
Zapopan Martín Muela-Meza (MEXICO)***

* *

*Dear reader,*

* *

*/Library and Information Science Critique: Journal of the Sciences of 
Information /**brings you its third double number (corresponding to its 
number 2 of the volume 2 and the number 1 of the volume 3). *We want to 
give you an apology in advance for the delay we had, but we appeal and 
thank you for your understanding since our editorial project is an 
independent Open Access project conducted with a collective and 
international effort of volunteers, which is not free from all the 
viscicitudes faced by its participants. And in this case the edition has 
been conducted completely by *Zapopan Martín Muela-Meza*. However, the 
wait has been worthwhile, and we thank you for that earnestly, here you 
have the third double issue. And our journal thanks to you keeps alive 
and kicking, and arrives reinvigorating to its third volume launching 
its double number (Vol 2 No. 2 & Vol. 3 No.1). For the next numbers keep 
in mind these important dates: December 30, 2010 deadline to receive 
contributions for the no. 2 of vol 3 (July-December 2010 issue) to be 
published on January 30, 2011; May 30, 2011 deadline no.1 of vol 4 
(Jan-Jun 2011); October 30, 2011 deadline for no.2 of vol.4 (Jul-Dec 2011).



*What are the contents of this issue of /LIS Critique?/*//In this number 
you will find 6 contributions (3 articles and 3 essays) of 7 authors (6 
Mexican and 1 Argentinian) who were kind enough to collaborate with this 
number. To learn more about the credentials of these authors, at the end 
of each contribution is appended their biographical profiles.

* *

*Zapopan Martín Muela-Meza (MEXICO) b*egins the critical debates of the 
*/Articles /*section with his contribution: “The /social class struggles 
concept /with an interdisciplinary approach/: /a paramount concept for 
research in library and information science (LIS).” In this paper he 
addresses that this concept emerged as part of the theoretical framework 
of his doctoral thesis (Muela-Meza, 2010): /An Application of Community 
Profiling to Analyse Community Information Needs, and Providers: 
Perceptions from the People of the Broomhall Neighbourhood of Sheffield, 
UK. /The relevance of his contribution, besides the fact of bringing 
forward the concept of /social class /to the international debate in the 
sciences of information recorded in documents, like library and 
information science (LIS), is the fact of being configured as /stuggles 
/in the Marxist sense, /social class struggles (/Marx and Engels, [1848] 
1976a). However, in addition to this philosophical concept that is 
politically and ideologically very controversial and broadly denied in 
LIS research, other social sciences and the humanities, the


author has complemented it with the concept of /dominance hierarchy 
/from the natural sciences (Hauser, 2006; Sagan and Druyan, 1992). This 
concept configured and complemented with such approaches helped the 
author in his doctoral thesis to understand better the underlying 
controversial issues behind social classes and human conflicts. It also 
helped him to understand better the contradictions between people (e.g. 
LIS users with contradictory and mutually exclusive information needs to 
be provided by libraries and other institutions of information recorded 
in documents), and how these intensify when these are interrelated with 
the social class they belong to (Muela-Meza, 2007).



Another relevant aspect of this contribution is that the author not only 
explains the arguments that are in favour to the data and results that 
emerged in such doctoral research, but also he includes those 
contrasting arguments to confront his analysis. Hence, he addresses a 
sound critique against the partisans of the capitalist or bourgeois 
class who through their rhetorical ploys such as “social capital” and 
“community cohesion” of the postmodernist pseudoscience the pretend 
fallaciously to deceit LIS theorists and practitioners. He also 
criticizes rigorously the pseudoscience of postmodernism and its 
ideologues and followers because they pretend to undermine the rational 
logic fundamental to LIS and the rest of sciences. And he suggests that 
LIS theorists and practitioners employ the /social class struggles 
/concept as configured here in order to understand better 
contradictions, conflicts, and struggles within LIS theory and practice, 
and also to search for broader epistemological aims such as /justice/ 
and /wisdom/ (Fleissner and Hofkirchner, 1998), concealed by the 
capitalist or bourgeois and middle classes for their benefit against 
working class.



*Federico Zeballos (ARGENTINA),*with his contribution: “The banning of 
reading in Cordoba (Argentina): Elements for its study,” conducted a 
thorough and well grounded critique to the banning of reading in 
libraries of Cordoba, Argentina, by analysing documents since the 
Spaniard colonization up to the recent past related to the military 
dictatorships of extreme right in such country. He presents some cases 
of censorship in different types of libraries: university, public, 
school, popular and particular, where he highlights two of the first 
public bonfires of “forbidden books” carried out in Cordoba, pyromaniac 
practice to be later reproduced in numerous cities of Argentina and 
America (the whole American continent not U.S.A.). The paper is 
supported with accounts from directors and top managers who worked in 
libraries in those days; photographs of book bonfires and records of 
banned books; institutional documents such as royen and school 
resolutions, and statutory notes.



As part of the analysis that he conducts of the happenings in Cordoba, 
he makes a strong critique against such fascist oppression against 
Argentinian citizens, in this case through their memory recorded in 
documents:



“A common characteristic to all totalitarian regimes of the world, 
through all times, and from the most diverse ideological inclinations, 
has been (and it is) the systematic destruction of the heritage of 
culture and identity that they consider their enemy (either “external” 
or “internal”), as a basic strategy of domination against the opponent.



Thus, the bibliographic pyres aroused as a strong intimidatory message 
sent to all the community. Within this they included the public exposure 
of the kidnapped books, the /exordium/ of some


authorities, the shooting of photographs before and during the burnings, 
and the later propaganda of the happening in various communication media.”



*Felipe Meneses-Tello (MEXICO), *who since this number has become a new 
member of the *Editorial Board *of our journal, closes the */Articles 
/*section, and he continues with the critical debates with his 
contribution: “Universities, libraries, presses, and jails: spaces of 
education, reading, and theoretical work of the revolutionary 
proletarian intellectual.” In this he makes a critical examination of 
how universities, libraries, presses, and jails through their documents 
(books, periodicals, pamphlets, etc.) have served the revolutionaries of 
all times, but in particular to those of the proletariat, of whom he 
makes a sound recount of the Bolshevik Revolution. However, from a vast 
array of institutions, he highlights that libraries have had more 
preeminence in such self-taught instruction and theoretical possession 
of the proletarian /intelligentsia:/

/ /

Without fear to be mistaken, the most representative and praised 
institution between the revolutionary thinkers of the working class has 
been the library –underground and legal--, since it has been the space 
where they have spent considerable time of their lives. The various 
biographic works about the plethora that has lead the labour movement in 
the world support this statement. Hence, the intense work in a huge 
diversity of libraries is an essential phenomenon to study and analyse 
the central leaders of the revolutionary intellectuality.



*Jose Angel Gonzalez-Castillo and Carlos Alberto Martinez-Hernandez 
(MEXICO),*open the section of */Essays/* with their contribution: 
“Conformist trends in the laboring discourse and reality of librarians 
in Mexico.” These authors have conducted a thorough critique against 
some of the most notorious and pernicious elements of the invasion of 
the capitalist and bourgeois ideas and practices in the theory and 
practice of librarianship in Mexico. Their critique comprises the 
current Mexican federal government of Felipe Calderon; the General 
Directorate of Libraries (DGB) of the National Network of Libraries 
(RNB) of the National Council for Culture and Arts (CONACULTA) from that 
government; LIS education at the Department of Library and Information 
Science of the School of Philosophy and Letters of the Mexico National 
Autonomous University (UNAM), and the National School of Library and 
Information Science and Archives (ENBA) of the Secretary of Public 
Education (SEP) of the Mexican federal government. They mainly focused 
their critique on two commentators (Hernández Pacheco, 2007; Arriola 
Navarrete, 2006) whom through their library practice openly hold the 
political ideologies of the capitalist and bourgeois right within 
librarianship. They argue that such capitalist and bourgeois discourse 
fosters a conformist attitude amongst LIS theorists and practitioners, 
that charichaturises LIS theory, and that even worst, that affects the 
labour rights of the personnel of the Mexican public libraries.



*Horacio Cárdenas Zardoni (MEXICO)*continues with the critical debates 
with his essay: “What if librarians became professors? The labour 
problems of librarians that work in state public libraries.”In this 
essay he makes a comprehensive and critical literature review related to 
job descriptions of library personnel from 20 Mexican public 
universities, and he makes a sound critique to the fact that librarians 
are not considered with faculty (professorship) rank, but only as a mere 
managerial worker, without the recognition or advantages of the former 
and without the possibilities for the betterment of the latter.

* *

*
*

*Gonzalo Clemente Lara Pacheco (MEXICO), *closes the section of 
*/Essays/* with his contribution: “Books of the Mexico National 
Autonomous University (UNAM) through Google: two years later.” The 
author continues a debate he started himself in our journal two years 
ago (Lara Pacheco, 2008). He criticizes and questions the corporate 
discourse of Google with UNAM –as well as with all other libraries in 
the world that already have agreements with them--, that after two years 
of established such agreement the UNAM community has not received any 
benefits. In addition, he criticises that the digitization processes 
conducted by UNAM have been more efficient than those of Google, thus he 
also criticises and questions the technological capacities of Google as 
deficient, at least as compared with those of UNAM.



Hence, without further preface, we leave you at your hands with this 
sound collective and international effort for you to submit it to your 
rigorous critique and analysis. Get involved reading the debates offered 
in these three numbers since 2008, and even more, get involved in our 
editorial project by submitting your critical contributions.



Thank you for keeping our journal alive with your critical reading and 
even better with your critical contributions too!



*References*



Arriola Navarrete, O. (2006) /Evolución de bibliotecas: un modelo desde 
la óptica de los sistemas de gestión de calidad. Méxi/co. México. 
Colegio Nacional de Bibliotecarios.

* *

Fleissner, P. & Hofkirchner, W. (1998). “The making of the information 
society: driving forces, ‘Leitbilder’ and the imperative for survival. 
/BioSystems. (46), pp. 201-207.///

* *

Hauser, M. D.  (2006). /Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Universal 
Sense of Right And Wrong. /New York: Ecco; Harper Collins.



Hernández Pacheco, F. (2007) Nuevos paradigmas para la formación de los 
recursos humanos en bibliotecas y centros de documentación. 
/Documentación de las Ciencias de la Información./ Vol. 30,  65-99



Lara Pacheco, G.C. (2008).//Libros de la UNAM a través de Google. 
/Crítica Bibliotecológica: Revista de las Ciencias de la Información 
Documental,/ vol. 1, no. 1, jun.-dic., pp. 122-126. Disponible en línea: 
http://eprints.rclis.org/15015/2/c.b.vol.1.no.1.lara-pacheco.pdf. 
[Consultado 30 agosto 2010].**



Marx, K. & Engels, F. (1976a). /Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Collected 
Works. Vol. 5./  London: Lawrence & Wishart; Moscow: Progress 
Publishers; Institute of Marxism-Leninism Moscow. (Marx and Engels: 
1845-47).



Sagan, C. & A. Druyan. (1992). /Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search 
For Who We Are./ London: BCA. *C**B.*



-- 
Dr. Zapopan Martín Muela Meza, PhD 
<http://eprints.rclis.org/18649/13/Dr._Zapopan_Mart%C3%ADn_Muela_Meza_PhD_Certificate.pdf>, 
University of Sheffield, UK; MLS, SUNY Buffalo
CANDIDATE AS NATIONAL RESEARCHER, MEXICAN NATIONAL COUNCIL OF SCIENCE 
AND TECHNOLOGY (CONACTY) CANDIDATO A INVESTIGADOR NACIONAL SNI 
<http://www.conacyt.gob.mx/SNI/2010/Documents/SNI_Resultados_Ingreso_2010.pdf>
NATIONAL SYSTEM OF RESEARCHERS (SISTEMA NACIONAL DE INVESTIGADORES), 
CONACYT (2010-2013)
Candidate as National Researcher, Mexican National Council for Science
and Technology
http://www.conacyt.gob.mx/SNI/2010/Documents/SNI_Resultados_Ingreso_2010.pdf
Profesor con Perfil PROMEP (SEP) 2009-2012 (PROMEP Profile Professor)
Profesor Asociado A Tiempo Completo (Non-Tenure LIS Assistant Professor)
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León
Ciudad Universitaria, San Nicolas de los Garza, Nuevo Leon, MEXICO
zapopanmuela[nospam]gmail.com <http://gmail.com>
http://sites.google.com/site/zapopanmuela/
=a=l=e=j=a=c=t=a=e=s=t=i=n=h=o=c=s=i=g=n=o=v=i=n=c=e=s============
"Misinformation is a weapon of mass destruction" -- Faithless
c=a=v=e=n=e=c=a=d=a=s=s=i=v=i=s=p=a=c=e=m=p=a=r=a=b=e=l=l=u=m====
"La desinformación es un arma de destrucción masiva" -- Faithless
=v=i=c=t=o=r=a=e=t=e=r=n=u=s=b=e=l=l=u=m=d=i=x=i=v=i=c=t=o=r=i=a====





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