What is Information Science?
To my own opinion, its an interesting field:
The Institute for Information Scientists (IIS) defined Information Science as covering: “broad concepts and theories of information systems and information and communication technologies insofar as they apply to the principles and practices of information management”. [2] Institute of Information Scientists, Criteria for Information Science. London: Institute of Information Scientists (1996). [Google Scholar]
They list as more specific defining criteria:
specification, identification, analysis, implementation, evaluation and utilization of manual and electronic systems and tools;
information generation, communication and utilization;
information management and organizational context;
information environment and policy.
As characterized here, there seems little to distinguish Information Science from Information Systems.
A more recent American definition of Information Science sees it as “an interdisciplinary field concerned with the theoretical and practical concepts, as well as the technologies, laws, and industry dealing with knowledge transfer and the sources, generation, organisation, representation, processing, distribution, communication, and uses of information, as well as communications among users and their behavior as they seek to satisfy their information needs”. [3] HawkinsD.T., Information Science Abstracts: Tracking the literature of information science, J. Amer. Soc. Info. Sci. & Technol. 52 (1), 44-53 (2001).[CrossRef], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]
This has a similar concern with the generation, distribution and use of information and knowledge, but is couched more broadly, and lacks explicit emphasis on system development, organisational context, or management. The author also discusses the distinction between information science and librarianship. Without coming to a particular conclusion, he notes a view that librarianship has a “more service-oriented value”.
another that information science is an academic discipline rather than a professional activity.