Information science

• Published in: Journal of the American Society for Information Science Vol. 50; no. 12; pp. 1051 - 1063
• Main Author: Saracevic, Tefko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York John Wiley & Sons, Inc 1999; American Documentation Institute
• Subjects: Computer Science; Information Industry; Information Retrieval; Information Science; Information Science Education; Information Scientists; Information Seeking; Information Services; Library and information science periodicals; Library Science; Social Influences; Trend Analysis
• ISSN: 0002-8231; 1097-4571
• DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(1999)50:12<1051::AID-ASI2>3.0.CO;2-Z

This essay is a personal analysis of information science as a field of scientific inquiry and professional practice that has evolved over the past half‐century. Various sections examine the origin of information science in respect to the problems of information explosion; the social role of the field; the nature of “information” in information science; the structure of the field in terms of problems addressed; evolutionary trends in information retrieval as a major branch of information science; the relation of information science to other fields, most notably librarianship and computer science; and educational models and issues. Conclusions explore some dominant trends affecting the field.