Does LIS lack a subtext?

Have you ever noticed that library and information science (LIS) lacks a subtext? Someone, I forget who, stated that LIS vacillates between considering itself as a science or a social science. Regardless of where it positions itself, or perhaps because we can’t make up our minds, our discipline lacks a subtext. What do I mean by this subtext? I’m still not sure. What I have noticed is that we lack theory or theories on which we base our activities. Perhaps this is because I haven’t done enough professional reading?

This lack became apparent to me as I explored the concept of academic librarian competency. I was and continue to read on competence or competencies within the business literature and these authors are constantly quoting all these interesting names/ideas/frameworks, providing a context or subtext within which they chart their respective courses. In the first draft of my article, I noted that it lacked a subtext, in this sense an historical perspective of ideas and theory that have influenced my ideas for this article. I find that quite worrying.

Am I just a whiner who has got the wrong end of the stick? Have I just not done enough reading within my own field? Or is there an identity crisis within LIS that has resulted in an inability of LIS to define itself and thus create this subtext? Or has my field of endeavour just not grown enough into its own skin and lacks maturity. (This latter idea kinda links back to the idea of how to track ideas within a literature and, by default, I guess I’m proposing we extend it to see if it is possible to measure maturity.)

I find a parallel in archaeology that may illuminate our position. Archaeology grew out of sociology but currently draws extensively from physics, sociology, geography, biology, etc. to define itself as a discipline. It began in the late 19th century. When did LIS begin? Or library science or whatever you might want to call it? One answer is the 20th century. Are we so young we just haven’t grown up yet? Is it time to start thinking about growing up or is this debate already occurring and I haven't found it yet?