Chapter 1 briefly discusses the emergence of librarianship.
Chapter 2 covers major accomplishments relevant to the intellectual development of librarianship.
Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 bring together definitial disagreements and common denominators of different aspects of librarianship.
"Metalibrarianship is not a theory in librarian ship, but rather about the nature of librarianship. Horizontally, it is a broad concept, offering an umbrella for a variety of approaches to the interpretetation of knowledge records; vertically, it is a model of relationships between the necessary minimum number of elements, applicable to most, if not all, different interpretations, or viewpoints, about the nature of recorded knowledge."
Part 2: DEFINING LIBRARY REALITY: Philosophical Inquiry,
Describes the philosophi
cal interpetation of librarianship.its application to the philosophical interpretation of librarianship, and gives examples of philosophical debate on the nature of knowlege.
"Metalibrary interpretation is not limited to traditional librarianship. It is based on studying similarities, differences, and common denominators amoung various record-processing activities, from direct library provision of physical records, through the more theoretical transfer of the records' contents (information transfer), to a metaphysical definitions of the records' meaning, their cognitive introception."
Part 3: METALIBRARIANSHIP
Summarizes and updates Nitecki's essays on metalibrarianship, outlines the intellectual environment for the philosophy of librarianship, examines the concept of information and its role in metalibrarianship, presents a model of metalibrary system, and discusses possible application of metalibrarianship to the interpretation of library practice.
_M etalibrarianship_ attempts to answer some basic questions:
What is the meaning of information?
What are the principles behind a desire for information transfer, preservation of older records, or creation of new ideas?
One of the objectives of Nitecki's study is to identify philosophical aspects of librarianship as expressed in the library literature. The study proposes a model for metalibrarianship. The goal of this model is to relate the categories of different interpretations in one, coherent system.
_Metalibrarianship_ addresses the metaphysical essence, epistemological nature, and ethical values and purposes of information agencies.