Information science and its core concepts: Levels of disagreement

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingBook chapterResearch

Documents

One often encounters disagreements in information science (IS) (or library and information science, LIS), even disagreements about what might seem rather trivial questions. Such disagreements range from the designation of the field to questions such as whether IS is an academic discipline or not, what its aim is, what its core concepts are, what kinds of problems we try to solve, and what kinds of theories, metatheories, and related disciplines are the most important ones for us. Some people tend to regard IS as a branch of computer science or the cognitive sciences, while others tend to consider it as part of cultural studies or of science studies, and the different views are often reflected in the various names given to the field. These kinds of disagreement and their mutual dependencies are the focus in this chapter, with an emphasis on the different labels given for the field. “Poor terminological hygiene” may account for some of the disagreements, but basically the problem is seen as a lack of sufficient strong centripetal tendencies keeping the field together.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationFundamental notions of information communication and knowledge : lts affect on scientific research and interdisciplinarity
EditorsFidelia lbekwe-SanJuan, Tom Dousa
Number of pages31
Place of PublicationDordrecht
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media
Publication dateSep 2013
Pages205-235
Chapter9
ISBN (Print)978-94-007-6972-4
ISBN (Electronic)978-94-007-6973-1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sep 2013
SeriesStudies in the History and Philosophy of Science

Number of downloads are based on statistics from Google Scholar and www.ku.dk


No data available

ID: 47062453