LIS 701: Intro to Library and Information Science

Readings:

Rubin, Chapter 1: The Information Infrastructure

Information as Thing / Michael Buckland

Three meanings of “information” are distinguished: “Information-as-process”; “information-as-knowledge”; and “information-as-thing”, the attributive use of “information” to denote things regarded as informative. The nature and characteristics of “information-as-thing” are discussed, using an indirect approach (“What things are informative?”). Varieties of “information-as-thing” include data, text, documents, objects, and events. On this view “information” includes but extends beyond communication. Whatever information storage and retrieval systems store and retrieve is necessarily “information-as-thing”.These three meanings of “information”, along with “information processing”, offer a basis for classifying disparate information-related activities (e.g. rhetoric, bibliographic retrieval, statistical analysis) and, thereby, suggest a topography for “information science”.

Other Resources (PPTs, handouts, etc.):

Information Infrastructure