about the project

an invitation

In this way, in this movement and exploration, we are seeking and reaching for new ways of understanding and loving ourselves, and one another, ways of being with and for that we have not, or have not always, and which are here and elsewhere coming to be. This is part of a larger, ongoing project, a variation on a theme, which is to say it is a way of articulating our shared dream for ourselves and our communities.

-cline & López-McKnight, 2023 


So let’s pick up from what’s above, and from where this collective knowledge-making project begins and continues, and see where we can go together. 

Along this path lies new ways of understanding, and in our own ongoing movements, study, and explorations of expression, this project materializes as a purposeful, incomplete mapping of emerging and established keywords in Library & Information Studies/Science (LIS). This collective effort toward an understanding, and investment, in those terms, concepts, categories, and practices is what moves and grounds this making.  

This comprehensive project offers an opportunity to sketch out the intellectual and conceptual terrain, as well as the stakes, of LIS and the ideas, categories, inquiries, discourse, and considerations that constitute, circulate, ground, and direct it.

As this ever evolving critical turn in LIS pivots, and as our relationships, knowledge, and conceptualizations of the vocabularies, politics, methods, praxis, and questions that animate and form LIS as a constellation of knowings and practices, this collection of essays seeks to push, open, and clarify our understanding of the political, critical, theoretical, and methodological grounds on which LIS rests, and is increasingly energized by. 

Approaching keywords from a wide variety of angles, formats, and modes, contributors are encouraged to explore tensions and complexities in and connected to LIS concepts and terms; trace the lineage of ideas and their meaning, and the meanings attached to them; situate terms in relationship to  overarching, and through-lined, principles, frameworks, values, and practices that undergird and outline LIS; and articulate aspirations and futures through, and with, key themes and conversations. 

This project is an invitation for essays that interrogate, trouble, unsettle and complexify, as well as ones that explore, describe, or offer a rethinking of the key terms and concepts of the field. 

Final essays will fall in the range of 2,000-3,000 words and may be in a wide range of writing styles, forms, and expressions. 

(a tentative) timeline

October 9, 2023 | CFP invitations

October - November 2023 | Meetings with invited contributors

January 15, 2024 | Invited proposals due

February 2024 | Invited contributor notifications

May - June 2024 | Meetings with invited contributors

June 14, 2024 | Invited chapter drafts due

July - August 2024 | Internal peer review

August 2024 | Draft manuscript submitted to MIT Press

September 2024 | All feedback and review comments provided to contributors

October 2024 | Final chapter drafts due

December 2024 | Final draft manuscript submitted to MIT Press

 key information