Texts at work: some thoughts on "Just for You" service in the context of domain expertise.

Davenport, Elisabeth; Cronin, Blaise

Abstract

The authors review a number of approaches to "just for you" service. They suggest that this concept offers opportunities for library and information science (LIS) programs to extend their reach by engaging domain experts who will develop services and architectures grounded in communities of practice. They propose a unifying framework for an extension of LIS education and training and suggest that this be labeled "the ethology of text"—an extension of Nardi's concept of "ecology of text." The proposed framework can improve understanding of domain experts at work, if core elements of existing LIS programs (user needs, relevance, indexing, classification) are revisited, unified, and interpreted in the context of local practice. The paper concludes with some observations on professionalism, which address problems of linking communities of practice to knowledge architectures designed by information professionals outside any specialist domain. Outline suggestions for a curriculum that can enhance the performance of texts at work in a given domain are also provided.

Citation

Davenport, E., & Cronin, B. (1998). Texts at work: some thoughts on "Just for You" service in the context of domain expertise. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 39, 1-12

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 1998
• Deposit Date: Sep 17, 2010
• Print ISSN: 0748-5786
• Publisher: Association for Library and Information Science Education
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 39
• Pages: 1-12
• Keywords: "Just for you"; domain experts; communities of practice; knowledge architectures
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/3118
• Publisher URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40324302