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 other in professional schools, are subject to the demands of at times conflicting jurisdictions: research productivity may clash with professional service; theory building with the development of craft skills. This paper takes one sub-field in library and information science, ''Children and School'' (C&S), and uses it as a probe to frame certain questions about academic, professional, and epistemological (A-P-E) norms. We suggest that compliance with norms in these three areas is a criterion of membership of a vocational academic discipline. Non-compliance with all three, however, appears to be the criterion set for a ''new librarianship'', 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 of existing A-P-E norms. We argue that the call for a ''new librarianship'' is a response to conflicts in jurisdiction which may be resolved by other means.