In this article the author argues that LIS has suffered from lack of theoretical foundation. Recently many experts have tried to find a theoretical basis for the subject. Nevertheless they are not satisfied yet and they have not achieved to a consensus. The author argues that it is because they stood on a wrong foot. Content analysis is the main approach to this paper. The author believes that there may be found a powerful theoretical basis for LIS through the retrieval of information and knowledge. The value of this argument is that LIS may obtain a good basis on subject, problems and principles. The author although has had a definition which is newly published (2008) now has changed his mind and proposed a new one. He argues that according to traditional teachings that every scientific discipline must bear a subject, objective and problems, with this new definition all are present and can be well justified.

Worldview as a kind of man's look towards the world of reality has a severe influence on his classification of knowledge. In other words one may see in classification of knowledge the unity as well as plurality. This article deals with the fact that how classification takes place in man's epistemological process. Perception and epistemology are mentioned as the key points here. Philosophers are usually classifiers and their point of views forms the way they classify things and concepts. Relationship and how one looks at it in shaping the classification scheme is critical. The classifications which have been introduced up to now have had several models. They represent the kind of looking at, or point of view of their founders to the world. Aristotle, as a philosopher as well as an encyclopedist, is one of the great founders of knowledge classification. Afterwards the Islamic scholars followed him while some few rejected his model and made some new ones. If we divide all classifications according to their roots we may define them as human based classification, theology based classification, knowledge based classification, materialistic based classification such as Britannica's classification, and fact based classification. Tow broad approaches have been defined in this article: static and dynamic. The static approach refers to the traditional approaches and the dynamic one refers to the eight way of looking toward objects in order to realize them. The structure of classification has had its influence on epistemology, too. If the first cut on knowledge tree is fully defined, the branches would usually be consistent with it.

The present paper offers that most of the advocates of discipline of library and information science believe that there is a lack of theoretical foundation and rational identity. The author maintains that there has been an error in defining the subject by confusing library with librarianship. That is many researchers have derived the concept of librarianship from library. Therefore they came to define librarianship as an entity only through the social application and services. If instead, a librarian was assumed to be a person who was usually a scholar, with or without the knowledge of classification properly, and if it was further assumed that before establishing any library, at least there has always been one thoughtful person with the enthusiasm of classifying his own tacit or explicit knowledge in order to retrieve, the concept of librarianship could have been derived from the concept of personal seeking of knowledge, or the need of any knowledgeable person who believes in scientific classification for the sake of retrieval. Thus, there has always been the necessity for scientific classification even if there has not been any formal library. So, I propose that librarianship is more related to the knowledge retrieval and classification which is in the mind of all people specially scholars and learned men before the library, as a place for the collection of books and other materials come to being.

The present paper offers that most of the advocates of discipline of library and information science believe that there is a lack of theoretical foundation and rational identity. The author maintains that there has been an error in defining the subject by confusing library with librarianship. That is many researchers have derived the concept of librarianship from library. Therefore they came to define librarianship as an entity only through the social application and services. If instead, a librarian was assumed to be a person who was usually a scholar, with or without the knowledge of classification properly, and if it was further assumed that before establishing any library, at least there has always been one thoughtful person with the enthusiasm of classifying his own tacit or explicit knowledge in order to retrieve, the concept of librarianship could have been derived from the concept of personal seeking of knowledge, or the need of any knowledgeable person who believes in scientific classification for the sake of retrieval. Thus, there has always been the necessity for scientific classification even if there has not been any formal library. So, I propose that librarianship is more related to the knowledge retrieval and classification which is in the mind of all people specially scholars and learned men before the library, as a place for the collection of books and other materials come to being.

LIS has been originally defined as a discipline shaped by library as a place. The purpose of this paper is to clarify that this approach is not correct. The author, meanwhile, briefly answers the ten major problems in this regard, made by Nolin & Astrom. Through content analysis the text claims that the concept of LIS is not derived from library as a place; rather, it originates from the very man's need to information. The author states that the original concept of LIS does not suffer from weakness, if it is considered to have been originated from human need to information. However, the library as a place is a full-size manifestation of this need. Therefore, by changing the approach the major problems may be resolved. The paper provides a clear definition for LIS as a metadiscipline which deals interchangeably with all other fields of study.