From practice to praxis: Exploring the road to developing and adopting a universal philosophy of librarianship

Abstract

This paper discusses the road to developing and adopting a universal philosophy for librarianship. It adopted an exploratory study in the discussion. An understanding of what a philosophy of librarianship is its advantage, purpose and the bases for a philosophical approach were highlighted. It provides a brief bird’s eye view of the distinct phases of the development of a philosophy of librarianship. The paper observed that despite the age-long conversation, and the seeming agreement as to why and how a philosophy of librarianship would serve the profession, librarians and librarianship do not coalesce around a philosophy of librarianship. The paper enumerates the reasons responsible for this as follows: librarian identity crises, language problem, none existence of a catchphrase or slogan for librarians and the multi-faceted nature of the profession librarianship. It concludes that engaging in a reflective and philosophically-based practice of librarianship, one that frames decision-making and library work with the question: “what we do and why we do it?” will enable the library community to have successful conversations with those they serve. The paper recommends that instead of searching for a unified philosophy of librarianship, we should move from having a practice of librarianship to praxis of librarianship.

Keywords: Praxis, philosophy, librarianship, philosophy of librarianship.