The trouble with diverse books, part I: on the limits of conceptual analysis for political negotiation in Library & Information Science

Abstract

Purpose

The term diverse books is increasingly popular yet persistently nebulous. The purpose of this paper – Part I of II – is to illuminate both that the concept is in need of a unified account and that conceptual analysis, though at first seemingly quite promising, fails as a method for identifying one.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper utilizes traditional (or intuitive) conceptual analysis to specify the respective clusters of necessary and sufficient conditions that constitute four broad candidate accounts of diverse books.

Findings

Though diverse books is a concept in need of a definition, conceptual analysis is not an appropriate method for adjudicating between the definitions we have on offer. This is because the concept is fundamentally political, serving as a resource for re-shaping collective social arrangements and ways of life. The conceptual problem outlined here requires for its resolution a method that will move us from a descriptive project to an explicitly normative one, wherein we consider what we properly work to achieve with and through the concept in question.

Originality/value

This paper initiates a systematic analytical project aimed at defining diverse books. In illustrating a moment of methodological failure, it paves the way for a critical alternative – namely, Part II's proposal of an analytical intervention in which political concepts are defined partially in terms of their benefits vis-á-vis informational justice.

Citation

Lawrence, E.E. (2020), "The trouble with diverse books, part I: on the limits of conceptual analysis for political negotiation in Library & Information Science", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 76 No. 6, pp. 1473-1491. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-04-2020-0057