JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Library Quarterly.The authors develop a framework for addressing the question of truth in librarianship and in doing so attempt to move considerations of truth closer to the core of philosophical debates within the profession. After establishing ways in which philosophy contributes to social scientific inquiry in library science, the authors examine concepts of truth currently found in the literature. Analysis reveals that only scattered attention has been given to this issue. As a result, there is a lack of clarity about the relationship between theories of truth and the practice of librarianship. The authors review the three prevailing theories of truth in philosophy and then introduce a new construct of truth rooted in an early version of historicism. The authors conclude that this theoretical framework offers a new method for understanding how the objective practices of librarianship only can be adequately explained by considering their place within a contextualized process of historical development.

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Studies show that reaching beyond disciplinary boundaries can be an effective method for understanding complex research problems and enriching student learning. However, despite the increased attention given to interdisciplinary thinking in higher education, there is much that remains to be understood about the growing centrality of interdisciplinary practice and its assessment. This paper argues that a new, more robust conceptualization of nonsingular disciplinary thinking must be formulated around the philosophical foundation of synoptics. A critical point when this type of learning can take place is in reference services. The paper begins by outlining the emergence of interdisciplinary inquiry in higher education. After reviewing the literature on interdisciplinarity and noting the lack of scholarship concerning applied synoptics in current library literature, it discusses the ways is which synoptics establishes the foundation for a broader based understanding of knowledge that cultivates and encourages a polymathic perspective for the patron. The study concludes by describing how the concept of critical and integrative interdisciplinary thinking, rooted in the worldview philosophy of synoptics, can apply to the practice of reference services and inquiry-based transactions between the librarian and the learner.