Knowledge and Information Centre in the Social Construction of Reality

Abstract

Reality, that exists independently from human beings and can be constituted socially, contains a world of objects in itself and is changeable according to the changes in the acquired knowledge. In that sense, if our knowledge providing us with an explanation about the reality does not exist, nor does the reality itself. Social reality being defined as “the achievement of knowledge process” exists to the extent as much as we are aware of it. Therefore, reality is a phenomenon, which can be constructed, interpreted and conveyed through the existence of knowledge about it.

In the present study, the functions of information centres (ie. eg. libraries, archives, documentation centres etc.) as the reality itself, and also as the conveyor of reality in developing the social reality has been investigated. The social function of the information centre in developing the reality depends upon the assumption that, “the reality cannot be beyond my knowledge; the reality I am not aware of is not a reality”. In this study, the role of knowledge and the information centre as a means of knowledge in ‘causing the existence of knowledge and explaining it’ is to evaluate in terms of the structure underlying information management domain. Thereby, the hypothesis “information centre is important for that very reason” has also been assessed.