A fascinating field and a pragmatic enterprise

Abstract

Information science is a fascinating field. It is basically about helping people find the books, articles, pictures, music, information, etc., they need or would like to read or experience. Information specialists help students, researchers and everybody else to find the documents they need in order to solve tasks, including writing thesis and research papers. Such documents used to be kept in physical libraries, archives and museums but are increasingly available in digital form, sometimes free, sometimes with toll access. We may term all this ‘the information ecology’ and information specialists are those people studying this universe in order to help people utilizing it optimally for the specific purposes that people have. Although much information is available in digital form, the study of information is not identical with the study of computers, information technology or communication technology. Information science is rather about knowledge production in society and how this knowledge is materialized in documents, including digital documents, and how it is organized, labelled and managed, in order to serve different groups and individuals (this definition is adapted from Jack Andersen). Information science is about what Google and Wikipedia can do for you, but it is also about what Google and Wikipedia cannot do for you, what else needs to be consulted. It is about how to improve access to information by progress both in computer-based retrieval and in forms of information services provided by information professionals. Such information services include the teaching of ‘information literacy’ to students and helping professionals, for example medical doctors, doing evidence-based practice. Another way to describe the difference between computer science and information science is to say that for the first the interaction between humans and computers is a core topic. In the case of information science it is rather the interaction between people and the whole information ecology. This makes an important difference, although the computer is certainly a central tool in information science. Information science has many specific branches. Some specialize in specific technologies, for example, the new wave of ‘social technologies’ or specific user groups (e.g. library and information services for children). Some subfields cover kinds of processes such as information seeking and retrieval or knowledge organization and information architecture. Some specialize in specific domains, for example cultural, social or scientific information.