A Critical Look at Information Science and Librarianship in a New Age

Constellation of Insanity

Wade Bishop|Renate L. Chancellor|Joe Sánchez
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Hardback
9781836086574
15 April 2026
$132.00
eBook (PDF)
9781836086567
25 March 2026
$132.00
eBook (ePub)
9781836086581
25 March 2026
$132.00

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  • Description
  • Contents
  • About

A Critical Look at Information Science and Librarianship in a New Age: Constellation of Insanity fosters a platform for information scientists to engage in reflection and contemplation regarding the profound questions of our era. By drawing insights from pioneers in the field whose contributions were once marginalized or, in some instances, overlooked within the realm of information science, chapter authors strive to re/center the field's focal point.

Chapter authors draw from a diverse array of frameworks including critical theory, deconstruction, queer theory, borderlands, among others. What sets this book apart is its direct confrontation of the status quo and aggressively re/claims intellectual space for "others". This is the only book to critique the entire discipline of Information Science from as many angles as possible in one volume and as far outside of the traditional organizations.

Section 1. Pirates

  • Chapter 1. Visible Threats and Hidden Practices: Embodied Information and the Policing of Biker Identity; Joe Sánchez
  • Chapter 2. Man, Becky, Bear! Surviving White Mediocrity and Striving Towards Anti-Racism (STAR) in LIS; Nicole A. Cooke and Rachel D. William
  • Chapter 3. An Epistle to the iPostles: A Sermon on the Mount(anious) Journey from Ph.D. Student to LIS Professor; Joseph Winberry
  • Chapter 4. A Pirate’s Critique from Social Justice Imperatives: A Manifesto of Decolonizing actions to Resist Entrenched Dysfunctions in LIS Scholarship; Bharat Mehra
  • Section 2. Ghosts
  • Chapter 5. Everything I Need To Know About Information Science I Learned from the L Word: What the Field Needs to Recognize about Everyday Information; Vanessa Kitzie
  • Chapter 6. Who feels like they belong at the library?; Heather Hill
  • Chapter 7. The future has a Past’: On Information, Memory, and the Black Feminist Hereafter; LaVerne Gray
  • Chapter 8. The More Than Three-Body Problem: Embodiment as a Persistent Challenge to Information Science; Travis L. Wagner
  • Chapter 9. Unclaimed Baggage: Facets of Fragility; Wade Bishop
  • Section 3. Unexplored Spaces
  • Chapter 10. DEIA…The Final Frontier? Going Where No One Has Gone Before?; Renate L. Chancellor and Deirdre Michael Sullivan
  • Chapter 11. Crossing the (Scientific) Borders: Redefining Disciplinary Boundaries and Bridging the Divides in ISL; Ly Dinh
  • Chapter 12. Toward a New AI Literacy; Peter Organisciak and Emily Gillette
  • Chapter 13. A Virgo’s Guide to Surviving the Aquarian Shift: Reimagining Information Systems with Precision and Purpose; Siobahn Day Grady

Wade Bishop is a Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, USA. He is the Director of Graduate Studies as well as the Research Data Management Certificate Coordinator.

Renate L. Chancellor is Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA). She is recipient of the 2014 Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Excellence in Teaching Award and the 2012 ALISE Leadership Award. She is an affiliated faculty member with the Lender Center for Social Justice.

Joe Sánchez is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at Queens College (CUNY), USA. He is a Mellon Fellow and a Google/ALA fellow in the Libraries Ready to Code Program, a founder of the iSchool Inclusion Institute (i3), and on the advisory board of the ALA Spectrum Doctoral Fellows program.