The following outline of information science is provided as an overview of and topical guide to information science:

Information science Information science (also known as information studies) is an academic field which is primarily concerned with analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, dissemination, and protection of informatio ...

– interdisciplinary field primarily concerned with the analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of

information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...

. Practitioners within the field study the application and usage of knowledge in

organization An organization or organisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is an legal entity, entity—such as ...

s, along with the interaction between people, organizations and any existing

information system An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...

s, with the aim of creating, replacing, improving or understanding information systems.

What ''type'' of thing is information science?

Information science can be described as all of the following: * An

academic discipline An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

– * A branch of

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

– ** An applied science – ** An

action research Action research is a philosophy and methodology of research generally applied in the social sciences. It seeks transformative change through the simultaneous process of taking action and doing research, which are linked together by critical refle ...

–

Sub-disciplines of information science

Information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of Data (computing), data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information te ...

* Informatics * Classification *

Bibliometrics Bibliometrics is the use of statistical methods to analyse books, articles and other publications, especially in regard with scientific contents. Bibliometric methods are frequently used in the field of library and information science. Bibliom ...

* Preservation * Cultural studies * Categorization * Data modeling *

Memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...

* Computer storage *

Intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

Intellectual freedom Intellectual freedom encompasses the freedom to hold, receive and disseminate ideas without restriction. Viewed as an integral component of a democratic society, intellectual freedom protects an individual's right to access, explore, consider, and ...

* Privacy *

Censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

Contributing fields

As an interdisciplinary field, information science draws upon and incorporates concepts and methodologies from: * Archival science * Cognitive science *

Commerce Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...

Communications Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

Computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

Library science Library science (often termed library studies, bibliothecography, and library economy) is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, an ...

* Museology *

Management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a Government agency, government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includ ...

* Mathematics * Philosophy *

Public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...

Social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...

History of information science

* History of information science *

Documentation science Documentation science is the study of the recording and retrieval of information. Documentation science gradually developed into the broader field of information science. Paul Otlet (1868–1944) and Henri La Fontaine (1854–1943), both Belgi ...

– predecessor of information science. * Fathers of information science **

Paul Otlet Paul Marie Ghislain Otlet (; ; 23 August 1868 – 10 December 1944) was a Belgian author, entrepreneur, lawyer and peace activist; predicting the arrival of the internet before World War II, he is among those considered to be the father of infor ...

Henri La Fontaine Henri La Fontaine (; 22 April 1854 – 14 May 1943), was a Belgian international lawyer and president of the International Peace Bureau. He received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1913 because "he was the effective leader of the peace movement in ...

* Information history *

International Federation for Information and Documentation The International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID) was an international organization that was created to promote universal access to all recorded knowledge through the creation of an international classification system. FID stand ...

* History of information representation and retrieval ** Has undergone four phases of developmentChu, Heting (2010).’’ Information Representation and Retrieval in the Digital Age’’, Second Edition. Medford, NJ: Information Today **# Increased Demand (1940s–early 1950s) (

Information explosion The information explosion is the rapid increase in the amount of published information or data and the effects of this abundance. As the amount of available data grows, the problem of managing the information becomes more difficult, which can lead ...

) **# Rapid Growth (1950s–1980s) (the emergence of computers and systems such as

Dialog (online database) Dialog is an online information service owned by ProQuest, who acquired it from Thomson Reuters in mid-2008. Dialog was one of the predecessors of the World Wide Web as a provider of information, though not in form. The earliest form of the Dial ...

) **# Demystification Phase (1980s–1990s) (systems developed for end-user searching) **# The Networked Era (1990s–Present) (search engines such as

AltaVista AltaVista was a Web search engine established in 1995. It became one of the most-used early search engines, but lost ground to Google and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, which retained the brand, but based all AltaVista searches on its own sear ...

and

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

)

Research methods of information science

Archival research Archival research is a type of research which involves seeking out and extracting evidence from archival records. These records may be held either in collecting institutions, such as libraries and museums, or in the custody of the organization ( ...

– facts or factual evidences from a variety of records are compiled. * Computational complexity and structure – algorithmic and graphic methods are used to explore the complexity of information systems, retrieval and storage. *

Content analysis Content analysis is the study of documents and communication artifacts, which might be texts of various formats, pictures, audio or video. Social scientists use content analysis to examine patterns in communication in a replicable and systematic ...

– studies how people communicate by analyzing the contents of books and mass media as well as the messages people talk or write about. *

Case study A case study is an in-depth, detailed examination of a particular case (or cases) within a real-world context. For example, case studies in medicine may focus on an individual patient or ailment; case studies in business might cover a particular fi ...

– specific set of circumstances or a group (the 'case') is analyzed according to a specific goal of study. Generally, case studies are used to characterize a trend or development; they have weak generalizability. *

Discourse analysis Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is an approach to the analysis of written, vocal, or sign language use, or any significant semiotic event. The objects of discourse Analysis (discourse, writing, conversation, communicative event) ...

– analyzing written, oral, and sign language use *

Historical method Historical method is the collection of techniques and guidelines that historians use to research and write histories of the past. Secondary sources, primary sources and material evidence such as that derived from archaeology may all be drawn ...

– involves a continuous and systematic search for the information and knowledge about past events related to the life of a person, a group, society, or the world. *

Interviews An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" r ...

– researchers obtain data by interviewing people. If the interview is non-structured, the researcher leaves it to the interviewee (also referred to as the respondent or the informant) to guide the conversation. * Life history – study of the personal life of a person. Through a series of interviews, the researcher can probe into the decisive moments in their life or the various influences on their life. *

Longitudinal study A longitudinal study (or longitudinal survey, or panel study) is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g., people) over short or long periods of time (i.e., uses longitudinal data). It is often a type of ob ...

– extensive examination of a specific group over a long period of time. * Observation – using data from the senses, one records information about a social phenomenon or behavior. Qualitative research relies heavily on observation, although it is in a highly disciplined form. * Participant observation – involves researchers going into the field (usually a community), living with the people for some time, and participating in their activities in order to know and feel their culture.

General information science concepts

Academic publishing Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally pu ...

(including

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...

and open access) *

* Data modeling *

Document management A document management system (DMS) is usually a computerized system used to store, share, track and manage files or documents. Some systems include history tracking where a log of the various versions created and modified by different users is r ...

and Document Engineering * Groupware * Human-computer interaction (HCI) *

Information access Information access is the freedom or ability to identify, obtain and make use of database or information effectively. There are various research efforts in information access for which the objective is to simplify and make it more effective for ...

Information architecture Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments; the art and science of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability; and an emerging ...

Information ethics Information ethics has been defined as "the branch of ethics that focuses on the relationship between the creation, organization, dissemination, and use of information, and the ethical standards and moral codes governing human conduct in society". I ...

* Information literacy * Information management * Information retrieval (IR) *

Information seeking Information seeking is the process or activity of attempting to obtain information in both human and technological contexts. Information seeking is related to, but different from, information retrieval (IR). Compared to information retrieval T ...

** Information seeking behavior ***

Browsing Browsing is a kind of orienting strategy. It is supposed to identify something of relevance for the browsing organism. When used about human beings it is a metaphor taken from the animal kingdom. It is used, for example, about people browsing o ...

Information society An information society is a society where the usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration of information is a significant activity. Its main drivers are information and communication technologies, which have resulted in rapid inf ...

Information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...

(IP) *

Knowledge engineering Knowledge engineering (KE) refers to all technical, scientific and social aspects involved in building, maintaining and using knowledge-based systems. Background Expert systems One of the first examples of an expert system was MYCIN, an appli ...

Knowledge management Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organisational objectives by making ...

** Knowledge transfer *

Knowledge organization Knowledge organization (KO), organization of knowledge, organization of information, or information organization is an intellectual discipline concerned with activities such as document description, indexing, and classification that serve to ...

Memory institution A memory institution is an organization maintaining a repository of public knowledge, a generic term used about institutions such as libraries, archives, heritage (monuments & sites) institutions, aquaria and arboreta, and zoological and botanical ...

s *

Ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...

Personal information management Personal information management (PIM) is the study of the activities people perform in order to acquire or create, store, organize, maintain, retrieve, and use information items such as documents (paper-based and digital), web pages, and email mes ...

(PIM) *

Philosophy of information The philosophy of information (PI) is a branch of philosophy that studies topics relevant to information processing, representational system and consciousness, cognitive science, computer science, information science and information technology. ...

Scholarly communication Scholarly communication involves the creation, publication, dissemination and discovery of academic research, primarily in peer-reviewed journals and books. It is “the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evalu ...

* Scientific communication *

Science and technology studies Science and technology studies (STS) is an interdisciplinary field that examines the creation, development, and consequences of science and technology in their historical, cultural, and social contexts. History Like most interdisciplinary fie ...

* Semantic Web *

Steganography Steganography ( ) is the practice of representing information within another message or physical object, in such a manner that the presence of the information is not evident to human inspection. In computing/electronic contexts, a computer file, ...

Usability engineering Usability engineering is a field that is concerned generally with human–computer interaction and specifically with devising human–computer interfaces that have high usability or user friendliness. It provides structured methods for achieving ...

Human factors Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...

User-centered design User-centered design (UCD) or user-driven development (UDD) is a framework of process (not restricted to interfaces or technologies) in which usability goals, user characteristics, environment, tasks and workflow of a product, service or proc ...

** Design philosophy

Related disciplines

There are many fields which claim to be "sciences" or "disciplines" which are difficult to distinguish from each other and from information science. Some of them are: * Archival science * Communication studies *

* Informatics * Information management *

research * Information literacy *

Internet studies Internet studies is an interdisciplinary field studying the social, psychological, political, technical, cultural and other dimensions of the Internet and associated information and communication technologies. The human aspects of the Internet ...

* Media studies * Records management * Scientometrics

Information science organizations

American Society for Information Science and Technology The Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) is a nonprofit membership organization for information professionals that sponsors an annual conference as well as several serial publications, including the ''Journal of the Asso ...

Association of Information Technology Professionals The Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP) is a professional association that focuses on information technology education for business professionals. The group is a non-profit US-oriented group, but its activities are performed ...

(AITP) *

Society of Information Technology Management A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...

(SOCITM), related group based in the UK

Related governmental agencies

National Commission on Libraries and Information Science The National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) was an agency in the United States government between 1970 and 2008. The activities of the Commission were consolidated into the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Record ...

(NCLIS) :*

Institute of Museum and Library Services The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is an independent agency of the United States federal government established in 1996. It is the main source of federal support for libraries and museums within the United States, having the ...

(IMLS)

Educational institutions

Information school An information school (sometimes abbreviated I-school or iSchool) is a university-level institution committed to understanding the role of information in nature and human endeavors. Synonyms include school of information, department of informati ...

List of Information Schools This list of information schools, sometimes abbreviated to iSchools, includes members of the iSchools organization. iSchools organization The iSchools organization reflects a consortium of over 100 information schools across the globe. iSchools pr ...

Information science awards

* Claude E. Shannon Award * IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award * IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal * J.W. Graham Medal * O'Moore Medal

Information science publications

Information science journals

* '' African Journal of Library, Archives and Information Science'' * '' Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science'' * '' Information Research'' * ''

Information Sciences (journal) ''Information Sciences'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering information science. It was established in 1968 and is published by Elsevier. The editor-in-chief is Witold Pedrycz (University of Alberta). According to the ''Journal ...

'' * '' Information, Communication & Society'' * ''

International Journal of Geographical Information Science ''International Journal of Geographical Information Science'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Taylor & Francis. The editor-in-chief is May Yuan (University of Texas at Dallas), who succeeded Brian Lees (University of ...

'' * '' Journal of Information Science'' * '' Journal of Librarianship and Information Science'' * ''

Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology The ''Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of information science published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Association for Information Science and ...

'' * ''

TripleC ''tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique'' is a biannual peer-reviewed open access academic journal covering communication studies, media studies, sociology of technology/communication/media/culture, critical digital sociology, informa ...

Persons influential in information science

* Tim Berners-Lee * John Shaw Billings *

George Boole George Boole (; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was a largely self-taught English mathematician, philosopher, and logician, most of whose short career was spent as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in ...

* Suzanne Briet *

Michael Buckland Michael Keeble Buckland (born 1941) is an emeritus professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information and co-director of the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative. Buckland was born and grew up in England. He entered library work as a trainee at th ...

Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all warti ...

* Melville Dewey *

Luciano Floridi Luciano Floridi (; born 16 November 1964) is an Italian and British philosopher. He holds a double appointment as professor of philosophy and ethics of information at the University of Oxford, Oxford Internet Institute where is also Governin ...

Eugene Garfield Eugene Eli Garfield (September 16, 1925 – February 26, 2017) was an American linguist and businessman, one of the founders of bibliometrics and scientometrics. He helped to create ''Current Contents'', ''Science Citation Index'' (SCI), ''Journ ...

Frederick Kilgour Frederick Gridley Kilgour (January 6, 1914 – July 31, 2006) was an American librarian and educator known as the founding director of OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), an international computer library network and database. He was its pre ...

* Frederick Wilfrid Lancaster *

Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathem ...

* Alexander Ivanovich Mikhailov * S. R. Ranganathan *

Seymour Lubetzky Seymour Lubetzky (April 28, 1898 – April 5, 2003) was a major cataloging theorist and a prominent librarian. Biography Born in the Russian Empire as Shmaryahu Lubetzky, he worked for years at the Library of Congress. He worked as a teacher befo ...

Wilhelm Ostwald Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (; 4 April 1932) was a Baltic German chemist and philosopher. Ostwald is credited with being one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry, with Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Walther Nernst, and Svante Arrhen ...

Gerald Salton Gerard A. "Gerry" Salton (8 March 1927 in Nuremberg – 28 August 1995) was a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University. Salton was perhaps the leading computer scientist working in the field of information retrieval during his time, an ...

* Jesse Shera *

Warren Weaver Warren Weaver (July 17, 1894 – November 24, 1978) was an American scientist, mathematician, and science administrator. He is widely recognized as one of the pioneers of machine translation and as an important figure in creating support for scien ...

References

External links

Knowledge Map of Information Science

Journal of Information Science

Digital Library of Information Science and Technology open access archive for the Information Sciences

Current Information Science Research at U.S. Geological Survey

The Nitecki Trilogy

* ttp://www.libsci.sc.edu/bob/istchron/ISCNET/ISCHRON.HTM Chronology of Information Science and Technology
LIBRES - Library and Information Science Research Electronic Journal - Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia
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