Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 314
•
Trim: 6½ x 9⅜
978-1-4422-2879-5 • Hardback • December 2013 • $136.00 • (£105.00)
978-1-4422-2880-1 • eBook • December 2013 • $129.00 • (£99.00)
Charles Osburn is Dean and Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama Libraries. From 1980-2001, Osburn was dean of the libraries at the University of Alabama and the University of Cincinnati, prior to which appointments he was an assistant director in the libraries of Northwestern University and the State University of New York at Buffalo. He began his library career as Humanities Bibliographer at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Osburn has served on the boards of the Association of Research Libraries, the Center for Research Libraries, SOLINET, and several publishing enterprises, as well as on the Research Libraries Advisory Committee of OCLC.
Preface
Chapter 1. Introduction: the Ways and Means of Cultural Change
Chapter 2. Science, Industry and the Invention of a New Worldview
Chapter 3. Management as Cultural Authority
Chapter 4. The Cultural Values of Work and Leisure
Chapter 5. The Strategy & Spirit of Capitalism
Chapter 6. From Material Need to Consumer Culture
Chapter 7. Higher Learning as Marketplace
Chapter 8. Globalization of the Tightening Systems Knot
Chapter 9. Time to Think
Chapter 10. Balancing Values through Cultural Change
Chapter 11. Progress and Myth
Chapter 12. Knowledge Devalued: Summary & Conclusions
Bibliography
The Western Devaluation of Knowledge by Charles B. Osburn is a historical account of how knowledge and information have become conflated in capitalist/consumerist society. It is a valued contribution to those in the library field who are trying to think broadly about the transformations brought about by the information revolution.
— David E. Woolwine, Associate Professor of Library Services and Reference Librarian, Hofstra University