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Paradigmatic, historic and epistemological coordinators of Information Science: a systemization
Abstract
Introduction. This paper intends to analyse and establish the historical and epistemological
coordinates of Information Science, which in search of a definitive solution to the problems
that defune it, has evolved from the explicit validation of objective knowledge, in the first
period, to the acceptance of the subject as social actor that constructs knowledge in strong
relationship to its context, through a reflexive and interpretative processes.
Methods and analysis A chronological division into three periods was used, which were
successively under the domain of physical, cognitive and social paradigms. Each of these
periods was analysed through a set of qualitative variables. A literature review was
employed for the analysis.
Results. The approach from historical and epistemological perspectives allows one to
identify the substantial differences that indicate a cyclic reconstruction of the theoretical
and conceptual disciplinary supports. These differences allow one to identify those
distinctive aspects centred in the subject-object-context relationship, and related to the
social paradigm and its emergence.
Conclusions. If the physical paradigm has the main responsibility for the configuration of
Information Science, establishing the foundational theoretic-methodological basis, the
cognitive paradigm expresses and is a reflex of a more radical, social and intellectual change
and it is centred in the subject as individual. However, the social paradigm transcends the
narrow utilitarian and methodological framework that supported the cognitive paradigm,
emphasising the historicity of all the social phenomena, and in the persistent discussion of
all the subjective elements present in theoretical models.
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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.
Purpose
Describes the basic premises of three metatheories that represent important or emerging perspectives on information seeking, retrieval and knowledge formation in information science: constructivism, collectivism, and constructionism.
Design/methodology/approach
Presents a literature‐based conceptual analysis. Pinpoints the differences between the positions in their conceptions of language and the nature and origin of knowledge.
Findings
Each of the three metatheories addresses and solves specific types of research questions and design problems. The metatheories thus complement one another. Each of the three metatheories encourages and constitutes a distinctive type of research and learning.
Originality/value
Outlines each metatheory's specific fields of application.
For most of its modern history library and information science has been governed by the mode of thinking best characterized as positivism. This epistemology, shared with most of the social sciences for some time, features the quest for universal laws and the reduction of all phenomena, including behavioral, cognitive, and so on, to the physical, among other elements. This means to knowledge is unworkable for this field; a proposed replacement for it is hermeneutical phenomenology. This article outlines the elements of a revised epistemological approach that seeks an understanding of the essences of things (such as the library) and that takes into account, among other things, the intentional stances of the human actors within the realm of library and information science. Such a re-formed epistemology allows for a different set of questions asked and a different approach to answering them.
This article presents a theoretical investigation of the concept of ‘subject’ or ‘subject matter’ in library and information science. Most conceptions of ‘subject’ in the literature are not explicit but implicit. Various indexing and classification theories, including automatic indexing and citation indexing, have their own more or less implicit concepts of subject. This fact puts the emphasis on making the implicit theories of ‘subject matter’ explicit as the first step. A very close connection exists between what subjects are, and how we are to know them. Those researchers who place the subjects in the minds of the users have a conception of ‘subject’ different to that possessed by those who regard the subject as a fixed property of the documents. The key to the definition of the concept of ‘subject’ lies in the epistemological investigation of how we are going to know what we need to know about documents in order to describe them in a way which facilitates information retrieval. The second step therefore is an analysis of the implicit epistemological conceptions in the major existing conceptions of ‘subject’. The different conceptions of ‘subject’ can therefore be classified into epistemological positions, e.g. ‘subjective idealism’ (or the empiric/positivistic viewpoint), ‘objective idealism’ (the rationalistic viewpoint), ‘pragmatism’ and ‘materialism/ realism’. The third and final step is to propose a new theory of subject matter based on an explicit theory of knowledge. In this article this is done from the point of view of a realistic/materialistic epistemology. From this standpoint the subject of a document is defined as the epistemological potentials of that document.
The paper introduces bibliometrics to the research area of knowledge organization – more precisely in relation to construction and maintenance of thesauri. As such, the paper reviews related work that has been of inspiration for the assembly of a semi-automatic, bibliometric-based, approach for construction and maintenance. Similarly, the paper discusses the methodical considerations behind the approach. Eventually, the semi-automatic approach is used to verify the applicability of bibliometric methods as a supplement to construction and maintenance of thesauri. In the context of knowledge organization, the paper outlines two fundamental approaches to knowledge organization, that is, the manual intellectual approach and the automatic algorithmic approach. Bibliometric methods belong to the automatic algorithmic approach, though bibliometrics do have special characteristics that are substantially different from other methods within this approach.
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.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance and influence of the epistemologies: “empiricism”, “rationalism” and “positivism” in library and information science (LIS).
Design/methodology/approach
– First, outlines the historical development of these epistemologies, by discussing and identifying basic characteristics in them and by introducing the criticism that has been raised against these views. Second, their importance for and influence in LIS have been examined.
Findings
– The findings of this paper are that it is not a trivial matter to define those epistemologies and to characterise their influence. Many different interpretations exist and there is no consensus regarding current influence of positivism in LIS. Arguments are put forward that empiricism and positivism are still dominant within LIS and specific examples of the influence on positivism in LIS are provided. A specific analysis is made of the empiricist view of information seeking and it is shown that empiricism may be regarded as a normative theory of information seeking and knowledge organisation.
Originality/value
– The paper discusses basic theoretical issues that are important for the further development of LIS as a scholarly field.
The objective of the paper is to amalgamate theories of text retrieval from various research traditions into a cognitive theory for information retrieval interaction. Set in a cognitive framework, the paper outlines the concept of polyrepresentation applied to both the user's cognitive space and the information space of IR systems. The concept seeks to represent the current user's information need, problem state, and domain work task or interest in a structure of causality. Further, it implies that we should apply different methods of representation and a variety of IR techniques of different cognitive and functional origin simultaneously to each semantic full-text entity in the information space. The cognitive differences imply that by applying cognitive overlaps of information objects, originating from different interpretations of such objects through time and by type, the degree of uncertainty inherent in IR is decreased. Polyrepresentation and the use of cognitive overlaps are associated with, but not identical to, data
This paper analyses the theoretical and the epistemological assump-tions of information science (IS). Different views of knowledge underlie all major issues in IS. Epistemological theories have a fundamental impact on theories about users, their cognition and information seeking behaviour, on subject analysis, and on classifi-cation. They have also fundamental impact on information retrieval, on the understanding of 'information', on the view of documents and their role in communication, on information selection, on theories about the functions of information systems and on the role of information professionals. IS must be based on epistemological knowledge, which avoids blind alleys and is not outdated. The paper shows limitations in the dominant approaches to IS and proposes alternative viewpoints.
Discute-se a natureza da ciência da informação como uma ciência social. Para tanto, identifica-se como se deu a inserção da ciência da informação nas ciências sociais, percebendo com quais ramos destas ela travou diálogo em diferentes momentos. A seguir, discute-se sua natureza de ciência "pós-moderna", percebendo a complementaridade entre essas duas questões para um eficiente diagnóstico dos fundamentos sociais da ciência da informação.
Structural change of the knowledge flow: the electronic communication. The relationship between the information flow and the public, which is exposed to knowledge assimilation, has changed its structural model. Information technology has played a major role in this changing process. The electronic communication is analyzed as a way of disseminating information more profitable to the user than the oral or written process. The publicity of information and knowledge has become more efficient and accesible in the computer era.
Epistemology in library and information science (LIS) operates at a level that obscures its key features. A closer analysis of library policy and practice nonetheless reveals its shaping influence, making the study of epistemology both theoretically interesting and practically valuable. This article proposes a way of approaching epistemological positions in LIS. In order to do this, it is first necessary to examine its meaning, identify difficulties, and comment on current debates.
This study presents an extensive domain analysis of a discipline - information science - in terms of its authors. Names of those most frequently cited in 12 key journals from 1972 through 1995 were retrieved from Social Scisearch via DIALOG. The top 120 were submitted to author co-citation analyses, yielding automatic classifications relevant to histories of the field. Tables and graphics reveal: (1) The disciplinary and institutional affiliations of contributors to information science; (2) the specialty structure of the discipline over 24 years; (3) authors' memberships in 1 or more specialties; (4) inertia and change in authors' positions on 2-dimensional subject maps over 3 8-year subperiods, 1972-1979, 1980-1987, 1988-1995; (5) the 2 major subdisciplines of information science and their evolving memberships; (6) "canonical" authors who are in the top 100 in all three subperiods; (7) changes in authors' eminence and influence over the subperiods, as shown by mean co-citation counts; (8) authors with marked changes in their mapped positions over the subperiods; (9) the axes on which authors are mapped, with interpretations; (10) evidence of a paradigm shift in information science in the 1980s; and (11) evidence on the general nature and state of integration of information science. Statistical routines include ALSCAL, INDSCAL, factor analysis, and cluster analysis with SPSS; maps and other graphics were made with DeltaGraph. Theory and methodology are sufficiently detailed to be usable by other researchers.
In the generation after World War II a wide perception of an information crisis plagued all scientific professions. This crisis was an "information explosion" that scientists confronted from exponentially increasing num- bers of publications. One significant result of this crisis was the emer- gence of the "information wars"—the professional battle between scien- tists (documentalists) and humanists (librarians) over information retrieval.
The article (*) demonstrates the development of information science through three stages: its emergence prior to the second World War, its search for identity and alliances during the sixties and seventies, and its establishment as a discipline during the period 1977-80. The scope and present state of the discipline is discussed, pointing to five major areas of concern for information science as well as a number of core sub-disciplines. Current and future trends are emphasized. Based on the cognitive view, as defined in 1977 by M. De Mey, the author discusses the understanding of the concept of "information" in relation to the discipline and proposes a consolidated concept which has to satisfy dual requirements in relation to both sender and recipient of conveyed messages, in order to be operational from a current perspective of information science. The proposal relies primarily on arguments and suggestions previously put forward by G. Wersig, A. Debons, and F. Machlup, and extends the information concept proposed by N. Belkin in 1978. The author draws special attention to the views expressed by the late B. C. Brookes by reviewing and re-considering the arguments associated with his "fundamental equation" for information science. The implications of the consolidated concept are briefly discussed.
When library education was institutionalized at universities in the 1920s and 1930s in the United States, it pursued a social scientific path of disciplinary growth guided largely by perspectives in the philosophy of science. In this way, objectivity and neutrality became prominent professional ideals of library education.A different conception of social science denies a disinterested outlook and provides the basis for recent challenges to the profession's traditional perception of itself and its disciplinary growth. This article explores alternately the "neutral" and "normative" conceptions of library and information science as a social scientific discipline.
This paper explores the role of paradigms in information retrieval research. The nature of a paradigm is outlined and the fundamental sense of a paradigm as an exemplar is identified. The applicability of the paradigm concept to a multi-disciplinary field such as information science is discussed and it is concluded that paradigms can be a legitimate feature of information science though they may not be connected with the development of normal science. The features of two paradigms operating in information retrieval research, (1) the physical paradigm and (2) the cognitive paradigm are outlined, and their origins, nature and role examined. It is argued that although most work in information retrieval research takes place within the physical and cognitive paradigms, neither provides the basis for a powerful paradigm directed science. An explanation for the failure to develop a powerful body of theory articulated within a well developed paradigmatic framework is offered with reference to the inherent categorial duality of the field.
A discourse analysis of the cognitive viewpoint in library and information science identifies seven discursive strategies which constitute information as a commodity, and persons as surveyable information consumers, within market economy conditions. These strategies are: (a) universality of theory, (b) referentiality and reification of ‘images’, (c) internalisation of representations, (d) radical individualism and erasure of the social dimension of theory, (e) insistence upon knowledge, (f) constitution of the information scientist as an expert in image negotiation, and (g) instrumental reason, ruled by efficiency, standardisation, predictability, and determination of effects. The discourse is guided throughout by a yearning for natural-scientific theory. The effect of the cognitive viewpoint's discursive strategy is to enable knowledge acquisition of information processes only when users' and generators' ‘images’ are constituted as objectively given natural-scientific entities, and to disable knowledge of the same processes when considered as products of social practices. By its constitution of users as free creators of images, of the information scientist as an expert in image interpretation and delivery, and of databases as repositories of unmediated models of the world, the cognitive viewpoint performs ideological labour for modern capitalist image markets.
This article is a contribution to the development of a comprehensive interdisciplinary theory of LIS in the hope of giving a more precise evaluation of its current problems. The article describes an interdisciplinary framework for lis, especially information retrieval (IR), in a way that goes beyond the cognitivist ‘information processing paradigm’. The main problem of this paradigm is that its concept of information and language does not deal in a systematic way with how social and cultural dynamics set the contexts that determine the meaning of those signs and words that are the basic tools for the organisation and retrieving of documents in LIS. The paradigm does not distinguish clearly enough between how the computer manipulates signs and how librarians work with meaning in practice when they design and run document mediating systems. The ‘cognitive viewpoint’ of Ingwersen and Belkin makes clear that information is not objective, but rather only potential, until it is interpreted by an individual mind with its own internal mental world view and purposes. It facilitates further study of the social pragmatic conditions for the interpretation of concepts. This approach is not yet fully developed. The domain analytic paradigm of Hjørland and Albrechtsen is a conceptual realisation of an important aspect of this area. In the present paper we make a further development of a non-reductionistic and interdisciplinary view of information and human social communication by texts in the light of second-order cybernetics, where information is seen as ‘a difference which makes a difference’ for a living autopoietic (self-organised, self-creating) system. Other key ideas are from the semiotics of Peirce and also Warner. This is the understanding of signs as a triadic relation between an object, a representation and an interpretant. Information is the interpretation of signs by living, feeling, self-organising, biological, psychological and social systems. Signification is created and con-trolled in a cybernetic way within social systems and is communicated through what Luhmann calls generalised media, such as science and art. The modern socio-linguistic concept ‘discourse communities’ and Wittgenstein's ‘language game’ concept give a further pragmatic description of the self-organising system's dynamic that determines the meaning of words in a social context. As Blair and Liebenau and Backhouse point out in their work it is these semantic fields of signification that are the true pragmatic tools of knowledge organ-isation and document retrieval. Methodologically they are the first systems to be analysed when designing document mediating systems as they set the context for the meaning of concepts. Several practical and analytical methods from linguistics and the sociology of knowledge can be used in combination with standard methodology to reveal the significant language games behind document mediation.
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, José 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.
The article discusses the users' perspective of information seeking. A model of the information search process is presented derived from a series of five studies investigating common experiences of users in information seeking situations. The cognitive and affective aspects of the process of information seeking suggest a gap between the users' natural process of information use and the information system and intermediaries' traditional patterns of information provision. © 1991 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
In seeking a new sense of identity, we ask, in this article, the questions: What is information science? What does the information scientist do? Tentative answers to these questions are given in the hope of stimulating discussion that will help clarify the nature of our field and our work.
The emergence and development of information science within its wider disciplinary framework is interpreted. Information science is approached as one of a modern generation of communication or behavioral disciplines which emerged almost simultaneously around World War II. Consequently, an attempt is made to discern the evolution of relationships between information science and other modern generation disciplines. The internal development of information science is first sketched. Second, possible relationships and roles of information science within a potentially emergent suprasystem of knowledge are discussed.
While surprisingly little has been written about context at a meaningful level, context is central to most theoretical approaches to information seeking. In this essay I explore in more detail three senses of context. First, I look at context as equivalent to the situation in which a process is immersed. Second, I discuss contingency approaches that detail active ingredients of the situation that have specific, predictable effects. Third, I examine major frameworks for meaning systems. Then, I discuss how a deeper appreciation of context can enhance our understanding of the process of information seeking by examining two vastly different contexts in which it occurs: organizational and cancer-related, an exemplar of everyday life information seeking. This essay concludes with a discussion of the value that can be added to information seeking research and theory as a result of a deeper appreciation of context, particularly in terms of our current multi-contextual environment and individuals taking an active role in contextualizing.
This article presents a socio-cognitive perspective in relation to information science (IS) and information retrieval (IR). The differences between traditional cognitive views and the socio-cognitive or domain-analytic view are outlined. It is claimed that, given elementary skills in computer-based retrieval, people are basically interacting with representations of subject literatures in IR. The kind of knowledge needed to interact with representations of subject literatures is discussed. It is shown how different approaches or paradigms in the represented literature imply different information needs and relevance criteria (which users typically cannot express very well, which is why IS cannot primarily rely on user studies). These principles are exemplified by comparing behaviorism, cognitivism, psychoanalysis, and neuroscience as approaches in psychology. The relevance criteria implicit in each position are outlined, and empirical data are provided to prove the theoretical claims. It is further shown that the most general level of relevance criteria is implied by epistemological theories. The article concludes that the fundamental problems of IS and IR are based in epistemology, which therefore becomes the most important allied field for IS.
Based on articles published in 1990–2004 in 21 library and information science (LIS) journals, a set of cocitation analyses was performed to study changes in research fronts over the last 15 years, where LIS is at now, and to discuss where it is heading. To study research fronts, here defined as current and influential cocited articles, a citations among documents methodology was applied; and to study changes, the analyses were time-sliced into three 5-year periods. The results show a stable structure of two distinct research fields: informetrics and information seeking and retrieval (ISR). However, experimental retrieval research and user oriented research have merged into one ISR field; and IR and informetrics also show signs of coming closer together, sharing research interests and methodologies, making informetrics research more visible in mainstream LIS research. Furthermore, the focus on the Internet, both in ISR research and in informetrics—where webometrics quickly has become a dominating research area—is an important change. The future is discussed in terms of LIS dependency on technology, how integration of research areas as well as technical systems can be expected to continue to characterize LIS research, and how webometrics will continue to develop and find applications.
Context is hot in information science as well as in numerous other disciplines, but what exactly does this mean in and for research? The paper discusses the diÄerences between objectified and interpretative approaches to context. It is argued that in information needs and seeking research (INS), the former approach has thus far been more common. Contextual entities are usually described to provide a background for the study of individuals' or groups' information behavior, not in order to point out how contextual knowledge is. From a metatheoretical viewpoint, context is the site where a phenomenon is constituted as a research object. One way of understanding INS phenomena is to define them as patterns of behavior; another way is to understand them as phenomena mediated by social and cultural meanings and values. A large proportion of current theory and research in INS studies is located within the behaviorist framework which has become so familiar and taken-for-granted that it is rarely seen as a paradigm. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
In the introduction the concept of paradigm as well as the scope of epistemological research in information science are analized. The first part mentions some epistemological paradigms that have influenced information science so far, such as hermeneutics, critical rationalism, critical theory, semiotics, constructivism, second-order cybernetics, and system theory. The second part is dedicated to the analysis of three epistemological paradigms in information science starting with the physical paradigm that goes back to Shannon's theory of communication. The Cranfield tests and Michael Buckland's conception of "information-as-thing" are mentioned. The second paradigm is the cognitive one (B.C. Brookes, Nicholas Belkin, Pertti Vakkari, Peter Ingwersen). The third paradigm is the social one which goes back to Jesse Shera's "social epistemology," and is represented today by scholars such as Bernd Frohmann, Birger Hjørland, Søren Brier and the author himself. Practical consequences of epistemological research concerning the design and evaluation of information systems as well as research in information science are considered.
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