CONFLICTS OF JURISDICTION - AN EXPLORATORY-STUDY OF ACADEMIC, PROFESSIONAL, AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL NORMS IN LIBRARY AND INFORMATION-SCIENCE

Library and information science (LIS) faculty, like their peers in oth er in professional schools, are subject to the demands of at times con flicting jurisdictions: research productivity may clash with professio nal service; theory building with the development of craft skills. Thi s paper takes one sub-field in library and information science, ''Chil dren and School'' (C&S), and uses it as a probe to frame certain quest ions about academic, professional, and epistemological (A-P-E) norms. We suggest that compliance with norms in these three areas is a criter ion of membership of a vocational academic discipline. Non-compliance with all three, however, appears to be the criterion set for a ''new l ibrarianship'', recently advocated in the professional literature. By suggesting that ''women and children first'' should be the underlying philosophy of this new discipline, its proponents demand a rejection o f existing A-P-E norms. We argue that the call for a ''new librariansh ip'' is a response to conflicts in jurisdiction which may be resolved by other means.