Abstract: This article outlines the motivation for a spatial approach as a novel focus for cross-disciplinary interaction and research in the social and behavioral sciences. The authors review the emerging interest in space and place in the recent social science literature and develop a vision for a spatially integrated social science. This vision provides the conceptual basis for a program of six activities designed to promote a spatial perspective: learning resources, workshops, best-practice examples, place-based search, software tools, and a virtual community. The six programs will be informed by advances in the methods, technologies, and principles underlying spatial information science.

Abstract: 1. Information and its History 2. Organizing Information: The Language of Science 3. Transforming Information: The Origin of Statistics 4. Displaying Information: Maps and Graphs 5. Storing Information: Dictionaries and Encyclopedias 6. Communicating Information: Postal and Telegraphic Systems 7. Information Ages, Past and Present Selected Bibliography Index

Abstract: This paper presents different facets or aspects of Library and Information Science (LIS) from a theoretical and philosophical perspective. It begins with the presentation of different attitudes towards LIS and the divergence between LIS as a knowledge producing and knowledge utilizing area. It goes on to discuss the different labels for the discipline, its institutional affiliations and some technology driven paradigms. Fields of LIS practices, examples of concrete research problems and the fundamental concepts are introduced as are subareas, theories, related disciplines, and approaches (“paradigms”/metatheories). Also a short presentation of research methods and basic philosophical assumptions is included.

Abstract: This paper describes ethnomethodologically informed ethnography (EM) as a methodology for information science research, illustrating the approach with the results of a study in a university library. We elucidate major differences between the practical orientation of EM and theoretical orientation of other ethnographic approaches in information science research. We address ways in which EM may be used to inform systems design and consider the issues that arise in coordinating the results of this research with the needs of information systems designers. We outline our approach to the “ethnographically informed” development of information systems in addressing some of the major problems of interdisciplinary work between system designers and EM researchers.

Abstract: This paper investigates the problem of the labelling of the library, documentation and information field with particular emphasis on the terms ‘information’ and ‘document’. What influences introduced the concept of ‘information’ into the library field in the middle of the twentieth century? What kind of theoretical orientations have dominated the field, and how are these orientations linked to epistemological assumptions? What is the implication of the recent influence of socially oriented epistemologies for such basic concepts in IS as ‘information’ and ‘document’? The article explores these problems and advocates an approach with emphasis on documents and on the concept ‘memory institutions’ as generic terms for the central object of study.

Abstract: Systems science has been considered the basis for information systems. A wealth of research in information systems in the framework of systems science has produced an astonishing array of theoretical results and empirical insights, and a large suite of tools and methods. This paper aims at reviewing the contribution of systems science to information systems research and tracing how concepts and findings in systems science have been applied, extended and refined in information systems research. As we approach the end of twentieth century, this paper points out that systems science is a necessity to deal with the overwhelming systems complexity in the information era of the next century. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract: Introduction The last half of the 1900s has been characterized by the increasing importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in social and organizational life. Computers, both on the desktop and embedded in automobiles, appliances, cellular phones, and satellite dishes have become part of the fabric of our work and social lives. In three decades, the Internet has grown from a network connecting four American universities and research labs to a global communications network. The evolving roles and increasing importance of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic commerce, digital libraries, and computer-mediated distance education are all examples of phenomena that both rely on computing and are becoming commonplace. How are ICTs changing the ways in which we work and play? What are the effects of the increasing routinization of ICTs in modern societies? What are the practical and conceptual issues and implications of widespread and pervasive computerization? In this paper, we provide an overview of the intellectual geography of the research and theorizing in social informatics, focusing on issues applicable to the information sciences. We use the term intellectual geography to mean the physical location of those who conduct social informatics (SI) research. We use the term information sciences to mean the combination of traditional information science domains and related information systems and user behavior literatures. This overview unfolds in three parts. In the first part, we define and discuss concepts central to social informatics. In part two, we highlight the emerging intellectual geography of social informatics in the information sciences. In part three, we outline some conceptual and applied contributions that arise from this work. What is Social Informatics? Social informatics (SI) is a multi-disciplinary perspective. Social informatics researchers focus on the social consequences of the design, implementation, and use of ICTs over a wide range of social and organizational settings. Of particular interest are the roles of ICTs in social and organizational change. Researchers have studied social aspects of computerization for over 25 years, using terms such as the "social analysis of computing," the "social impacts of computing," "information policy," "computers and society," and, more recently, "computer-mediated communication" (Kling, 1999; p. 1; Bishop & Star, 1996: p. 309). Because the research findings and insights are found in many different literatures, they are difficult for scholars and teachers to access (Kling, Rosenbaum, Sawyer, Weisband, & Crawford, forthcoming, p. 12). Organizational informatics (OI) refers to those social informatics analyses bounded within organizations--where the primary participants are located within identifiable organizations. Many contemporary studies of the roles of computerization in shaping work and organizational structures fit within organizational informatics. For convenience, in the rest of this paper social informatics is used to denote both social and organizational informatics. Thus, both organizational and social informatics research respond directly to Bates' (1999, p. 1042) second "big question" that defines information science: "How do people relate to, seek, and use information?" What is novel about the recent interest in social informatics is that it reflects an underlying move to consolidate these disparate streams of research into a more unified and accessible domain. Then what is social informatics? According to Kling (1999), A serviceable working conception of 'social informatics' is that it identifies a body of research that examines the social aspects of computerization. A more formal definition is 'the interdisciplinary study of the design, uses and consequences of information technologies that takes into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts. …

Abstract: A journal co-citation analysis of fifty journals and other publications in the information retrieval (IR) discipline was conducted over three periods spanning the years of 1987 to 1997. Relevant data retrieved from the Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) are analysed according to the highly cited journals in various disciplines, especially in the Library & Information Science area. The results are compared with previous research that covered the data only from the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). The analysis reveals that there is no distinct difference between these two sets of results. The results of current study show that IR speciality is multi-disciplinary with broad relations with other specialities. The field of IR is a mature field, as the journals used for research communication remained quite stable during the study period.

Abstract: (2000) Information technology standards and standardization: A global perspective European Journal of Information Systems: Vol 9, No 3, pp 205-205

Abstract: From the Publisher: We are often told that we are 'living in an information society' or that we are 'information workers'. But what exactly do these claims mean, and how might they be verified? In this important methodological study, Alistair Duff cuts through the rhetoric to get to the bottom of the 'information society thesis'. Duff presents the argument that there are in reality several 'information society theses', each with its own disciplinary origin and tradition. One talks about an 'information economy'. Another, the Japanese theory of the 'informationised society', measures communication flows, while a third focuses on IT and the 'information revolution'. This book brings together the various schools and examines them systematically in a comparative setting. It represents one of the first in-depth treatments of the field as a whole. Wide-ranging in coverage, this work will be of interest to scholars in information science, communication and media studies and social theory. It is a key text for the newly-unified specialism of information society studies, and an indispensable guide to the future of this discipline.

Abstract: JASIS has consistently been identified as one the major information science and library journals both in the United States as well as for the rest of the world (Kohl & Davis, 1985; Rice 1990; Siddiqui, 1997; Wormell, 1998; Nisonger, 1999). The Journal has also long been regarded as one of the discipline's chief archival documents. And archival documents retain their influence over their disciplines far longer than do other quality publications (Griffith et al, 1979). Based on our analysis of articles published in AD and JASIS from 1950 to 1999, we find that there has been a slow but perhaps inevitable shift based first on the single non-funded researcher and author to a much wider research and publishing participation among authors, regions, corporate authors, and countries. This suggests not only cross-fertilization of ideas, but also more complex research questions. A small trend toward greater external funding further reinforces this finding. We also chose to close our data collection with the last number of volume 50. This is less by design than by serendipity, since the data collection and initial analyses were conceived as a class project for the Elements of Research course of the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Oklahoma for fall semester 1999.

Abstract: : The report enclosed contains analyses of key trends that illuminate the scope, quality, and vitality of research and education in the Nation and in an international context. In addition to a special history chapter, the report presents trends in U.S. and international R&D funds and alliances, on the S&E workforce, on science and mathematics education from the elementary level through graduate school and beyond, and on public attitudes and understanding of science and engineering. S&E Indicators-2000 also devotes a chapter to the significance of information technologies for science and the daily lives of our citizens in schools, the workplace, home, and community.

Abstract: Introduction Relevance from a historical perspective has grown and expanded into a variety of interdisciplinary scholarly environments as an extension of thematic precedents evolving mainly from philosophical underpinnings. There are many variations on the concept of "relativism" as initially portrayed by the Greek philosophers, Protagorus and Gorgias, and later embedded into more modern movements espoused by William James and John Dewey. Most of these frameworks generally describe a theme that teaches us that what is known is dependent on the knowing subject (O'Neill, 1960). The seminal work of Alfred Schutz is one of the best examples of a paradigmatic shift from philosophical discussions of relativism toward the social theory aspects of relevance. Although first printed in 1932, its value as a theoretical framework for relevance was not evident until the publication of his translated collected works in the 1960s and the eventual compilation of previously unpublished papers and lectures under the title Reflections on the Problem of Relevance (Schutz, 1970). Schutz's tripartite conceptualization of relevance into topical, interpretive and motivational relevance provided an approach for investigating the nature, manifestations and effects of this selective function of the mind. Information Science Research: Information Retrieval Also during the 1960s, a movement emerged that identified relevance as an evaluative tool for resolving problems associated with measuring the effectiveness of automated information systems. Various definitions of relevance, including the following, set the tone for ongoing research in the field of information science: * a measure of information conveyed by a document relative to a query (Goffman, 1964). * the criterion used to quantify the phenomenon involved when individuals (users) judge the relationship, utility, importance, degree of match, fit, proximity, appropriateness, closeness, pertinence, value or bearing of documents or document representations to an information requirement, need, question, statement, description of research, treatment, etc. (Rees, 1966) These, and other early definitions, generated further explorations of relevance as a theoretical concept in information science, while other disciplines pursued relevance from differing perspectives. For 30 years there has been no practical substitute for the concept of relevance as a criterion measure for quantifying the effectiveness of information retrieval (IR) systems (Rees, 1966). The fuzziness surrounding the nature of relevance has led to confusion in identifying appropriate criteria, measures, measuring instruments and methodology. In the context of a user's interaction with an IR system, "relevance is a psychological predicate that describes his acceptance or rejection of a relation between the meaning or content of a document and meaning or content of a question" (Taube, 1965). It is the relationship, not the acceptance or rejection, that most studies have ignored. Saracevic (1975) and Schamber, Eisenberg and Nilan (1990) focused attention on "why" users accepted or rejected, instead of looking at the relationships of meanings. When relevance is represented, it is not a fine absolute judgment; it is in terms of comparative and gross absolute judgments. It is these intuitions of relevance that must be accounted for, not the simple presence or absence of relevance, but the degrees of relevance (Sperber & Wilson, 1986). This approach to relevance as relativism is not to be equated with ambiguity. "A person chooses for himself that alternative in a dichotomized construct through which he anticipates the greater possibility for extension and definition of his system" (Kelly, 1955). While the construct of black versus white is composed of mutually exclusive alternatives (just as relevant versus irrelevant is so composed), this does not preclude the use of the construct in a relativistic manner. …

Abstract: This paper analyses and discusses some aspects concerning the historical and social context of information science and information institutions. The starting point is a speech on the history of the librarian delivered in 1934 by the Spanish philosopher, Jose Ortega y Gasset. On the one hand Ortega y Gasset makes a brief analysis of the social need for books and the tasks of librarians from a historical point of view. In this aspect he is related to the classical way of studying libraries in the context of the history of civilisation and to the paradigm of the thirties which viewed the library as a social institution. On the other hand Ortega y Gasset is aware of new phenomena in the changing world of knowledge. From this starting point the article analyses how historical changes in this century may have influenced information science (and the forerunners library science and documentation) with regard to changing conceptions of the structure, foci and content of the discipline. The paradigms and frameworks analysed include: a pre‐war paradigm viewing the library as a social institution; the physical paradigm; the cognitive view; and alternative perspectives in the nineties representing a new tendency towards an integration of the social dimension of the discipline, based on, among other views, sociology of science, hermeneutics and semiotics. Among the alternative views in the nineties domain analysis gives the most promising demonstration of a historically and sociologically integrated perspective.

Abstract: The archivist has to understand the ways people create and maintain records and archives. This is particularly important as archives and archivists go through a paradigm shift from provenance defined by stable offices and roles to one of dynamic process-bound information. In all stages of records and archives management and archival usage, the socially and culturally defined "software of the mind" plays a role. This new "archivistics" demands that archival education be comparative and multi-disciplinary. Likewise, research in archival science, broadly defined, is a key instrument for experimenting, inventing, changing, and improving professional education.

Abstract: This article examines information theory from the aspect of its “conduit metaphor.” A historical approach and a close reading of certain texts by Warren Weaver and Norbert Wiener shows how this metaphor was used to construct notions of language, information, information theory, and information science, and was used to extend the range of these notions across social and political space during the period of the Cold War. This article suggests that this legacy remains with us today in certain notions of information and information theory, and that this has affected not only social space in general, but in particular, the range and possibilities of information studies.

Abstract: : Based on observations of Army group, corps, and division command posts in action over 12 different exercises and on interviews with a variety of military experts (including doctrine writers and former commanders), this report discusses the information needs of commanders of higher-echelon Army units. The authors attempted to determine the reasons commanders and staff communicated information and to clarify the intended uses of that information. They identified three different modes of command-post-level communication -- pipeline, alarm, and tree. Each mode is indicative of a different communication relationship between a commander and his staff, and each places different demands on the command-and-control operating system. To fulfill commanders' information needs, the authors recommend a number of education and training measures: 1) institutionalize back-briefing; 2) teach process as well as procedures; and 3) train unit command staffs to share images. As for the design of information systems, they recommend that the Army: 1) identify means of more direct image sharing; 2) build a hybrid information system, and 3) establish an end-user to end-user communications orientation. Keywords: Information transfer; Military commanders; Army operations; Command and control systems.

Abstract: 2000 CHAPTERS (LAYOUT FEATURES) Recasting the Information Infrastructure for the Industrial Age John, Richard R. It is one of the themes of this chapter that the speed with which it was theoretically possible to convey information from place to place —by, say, stagecoach, railroad, telegraph, or telephone—was merely one dimension of a complex social process. In part, this is because the transmission of information involved then—as it does now—not only its conveyance but also its routing. Indeed, for many information users, the speed with which information was transmitted might well have been less valued than its cost and accessibility, and the regularity and reliability with which it was conveyed. Geographic Areas United States

Abstract: There is currently widespread interest in knowledge management, with organisations of all kinds investing in technologies, systems and people to this end. Concurrently, within business and the economy as a whole, intellectual capital or intangible assets are growing in significance in relation to traditional tangible assets such as buildings and equipment. Many organisations are finding that traditional measures of organisational performance are insufficient for the task of managing intangibles. In trying to measure the value of knowledge inputs and outputs, such metrics as return on investment or the practice of consigning intangibles to the accounting category of goodwill need to be supplemented by alternative approaches. This paper looks at the problem of knowledge measurement and, in reviewing some of the current alternatives, argues for the importance of metrics to the overall process of knowledge management. The significance of knowledge measurement to the information science community is emphasised.

Abstract: This paper examines a practical adaptation of the ETHICS methodology used in redesigning an information technology (IT) support service in an academic setting. The purpose of the project was to design appropriate organizational structures and functions and an accompanying information system (IS), to increase the effectiveness of the existing service. A participative sociotechnical approach was adopted for the entire design process which was carried out by the practitioners themselves. The staff’s views were elicited during informal participatory group sessions as well as in one-to-one informal discussions. While ETHICS was the overall guiding methodology for the design, QUICKethics was used as a complementary means of analysing the requirements of the new IS. This paper describes the methodology used and the design process; it reflects on the adaptation and its match with the ETHICS methodology, exploring the claimed association with the viable systems methodology and concludes with suggestions for further research.

Abstract: This research aims to incorporate the results of co-word analysis into information retrieval as a means to increase search variety for end users in the domain of information retrieval. Relevant data were first collected from Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index for the period 1987-1997. The results of co-word analysis on the data were compared with similar data obtained from three thesauri: Library and Information Science Abstracts thesaurus, Library of Congress Subject Headings and Thesaurus of Information Technology Terms. The differences detected between them indicate that the search variety may be increased by combining co-word analysis with the use of traditional thesauri. Subsequently, the results of co-word analysis were compared with each other for two different periods (1987-1991 and 1992-1997). The changes among them were identified, implying that co-word analysis may be used directly to identify dynamic changes in its chosen domain area, thereby providing better up-to-date ...

Abstract: Knowledge management is an increasingly important source of competitive advantage for organizations. Knowledge embedded in an organization’s business processes and an employee’s skills provide a firm with unique capabilities for delivering a product or service to customers. Law firms represent an industry which seems very well suited for knowledge management investigation. Law firms are knowledge intensive and the use of advanced technology may transform these organizations in the future. To examine knowledge management in Norwegian law firms, a study which involved two phases of data collection and analysis was designed. The first phase was a field study of the largest law firm in Norway. The semi-structured interviews conducted in the initial field study documented a strong belief in the potential benefits from knowledge management. The second phase was a survey of Norwegian law firms. Firm culture, firm knowledge and use of information technology were identified as potential predictors of information technology support for knowledge management in law firms in Norway. The extent to which law firms in Norway use information technology to support knowledge management is significantly influenced by the extent firms generally use information technology.

Abstract: With the rapid growth of the information society the ability of technology graduates to be information literate has become critically important. Through the collaboration of a Mechanical Engineering Technology professor and an academic librarian, a project was designed which increased students' information research skills, their awareness of other sources of technical information, and their communication and team building skills. One problem faced by the authors was to develop strategies to integrate these skills into a curriculum that is already very demanding without deleting any of the elements in the current curriculum. A pre-test, post-test, and student comments supported the usefulness of the assignment. This paper will discuss the methods used, desired outcomes, students' experiences and the research results.

Abstract: This paper examines three e-journals and one paper journal begun in the 1990s within the information science genre. In addition, these journals are compared to what is perhaps the leading information science journal, one that has been published continuously for fifty years. The journals we examine are CyberMetrics, Information Research, the Journal of Internet Cataloging, Libres, and the Journal of the American Society for Information Science. We find that there are a number of important differences among the journals. These include frequency of publication, publication size, number of authors, and the funding status of articles. We also find differences among journals for distributions of authors by gender and corporate authors by region. Some of the regional differences can be explained by journal maturation -the more mature the journal the greater the dispersion. We also find that women are more likely to publish in the newer journals than in JASIS. The fact that a journal is or is not an e-journal does not appear to affect its presence or "behaviour" as an information science journal.