Information Science(s) (IS), Information Studies / Information Science and Technology

3.6 Information Science(s) (IS), Information Studies / Information Science and Technology

In the year of the name shift to American Society for Information Science, the society’s journal published an article by a leading information scientist entitled “Information science: What is it?”, in which the field was defined in the following terms:

Information science is that discipline that investigates the properties and behavior of information, the forces governing the flow of information, and the means of processing information for optimum accessibility and usability.

It is concerned with that body of knowledge relating to the origination, collection, organization, storage, retrieval, interpretation, transmission, transformation, and utilization of information. This includes the investigation of information representations in both natural and artificial systems, the use of codes for efficient message transmission, and the study of information processing devices and techniques such as computers and their programming systems. It is an interdisciplinary science derived from and related to such fields as mathematics, logic, linguistics, psychology, computer technology, operations research, the graphic arts, communications, library science, management, and other similar fields. It has both a pure science component, which inquires into the subject without regard to its application, and an applied science component, which develops services and products (Borko, 1968, p. 3).

This definition has recently been criticized by Capurro & Hjørland:

In our view, this definition does not contain a good identification of the special focus of information science. No science should be defined by its tools (e.g. modern technologies). All fields are supposed to utilize the most appropriate tools available. A science should be defined by its object of study. As such, the study of information is a better one. We need, however, to identify the specific role of information science in relation to “the generation, collection, organization, interpretation, storage, retrieval, dissemination, transformation and use of information” as distinct from the activities in which other professionals are more qualified. In our view, information professionals usually have a broad overview of information sources, sociological patterns in knowledge production, documents types, and so on. They should also have a broader knowledge of the philosophy of science (e.g., paradigms and epistemology), and of the principles of languages use for special purposes. We believe that the focus of information professionals (as distinct from the professional groups they are serving) implies a sociological and epistemological approach to “the generation, collection, organization, interpretation, storage, retrieval, dissemination, transformation and use of information" (See footnote 9). Information scientists – by the nature of the field – must work in a top-down mode from the general field of knowledge and information sources to the specific, while domain experts must work in a bottom-up mode, from the specific to the general (Capurro & Hjørland, 2003, p. 389).

This lack of a satisfactory definition of information science may well be correlated with the field’s lack of institutionalization as a full-fledged discipline as noted both by Wersig (2000) and by a recent edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica:

The institutionalization of information science as a discrete discipline thus has not occurred, and the number of its scientist-practitioners is low. Computer science and engineering tend to absorb the theory- and technology-oriented subjects of the field, and management science tends to absorb the information systems subjects. Hundreds of professional associations do exist that are concerned with information-related disciplines, providing a forum where people can exchange ideas about information processing (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007).

Sometimes the plural "information sciences" is used instead of the singular form, a façon de parler that makes the meaning of the term “IS” even more complex. Occasionally, a single author even uses the singular and the plural form without clarifying the difference¹⁶. Machlup and Mansfield (1983) suggested that one should speak about "the information sciences", similar to the way one speaks of the social sciences. How many information sciences do we have (if any)? Yet another variation is the label “information studies”, which is also widely applied.

As stated above, in the year 2000, the American Society for Information Science decided to add “and Technology” to its name. The same name shift appeared in its journals.¹⁷ The decision to alter the name in this way was made by the then president of the society, Eugene Garfield, although there was no discussion of the rationale for it in the research literature. The decision seems strange: the theoretical basis for much of the research in the field—for example, Garfield’s own specialty of bibliometrics—derives not from technological imperatives, but rather from the insights of bibliography, sociology, science studies, and epistemology. The decision to adopt the new name was probably made in an attempt to recruit new members to the society rather than out of any deeper scholarly motivation. Yet, information science (as defined by the association and its publications) is not primarily about developments in IT such as storage technologies, programming languages, and so on.

The term “information science” is today well established and should be maintained in spite of well-founded theoretical objections. These objections can be met by combining it with other terms such as “documentation”.