Information Science as a Field

Tuesday, 26 June 2018

Today we will discuss the history of the field of information science and the paradigms of information behavior and interactions research.

Read:

• Bates, M.J. (1999). The invisible substrate of information science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50(12), 1043-1050. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(1999)50:12%3C1043::AID-ASI1%3E3.0.CO;2-X/pdf
  • In this article, Bates discusses the "below-the-water-line" portion of information science. While she focuses more of her attention on the content/information of concern, she does include human-information interactions among her "Three Big Questions" in information science. Read through this article quickly, to get an overview of the field as background for the semester.
• Marchionini, G. (2008). Human-information interaction research and development. Library & Information Science Research, 30(3), 165-174. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2008.07.001
  • Marchionini focuses more directly on the scope of this course than Bates does in her article. Focus special attention on sections 2 and 6.
• Wildemuth, B.M., & Case, D.O. (2010). Early information behavior research. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 36(3), 35-38. http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-10/FebMar10_Wildemuth_Case.pdf
  • This article was written as part of the 10th anniversary celebration of the Special Interest Group on Information Needs, Seeking, and Use of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (SIG-USE of ASIS&T). It provides a brief historical overview of the general directions taken in information behavior research.

• information-science
• history
• critical-studies
• discipline
• field