Foundations of Information Science

Dear Colleges,
the current discussion between Soren and Rafael is interesting, but
seems for me more an discussion of ontology than information science.
For me a basic question is: Is information something human or something
physical. Or rather: because a definition is not true or false but more
or less purposefull, I would like to ask: what are the consequences for
a science of information to define "information" in one way or the
other. What are the dilemmaes in defining the concept of information for
a information science?

My own answer so far: What we call information science (a lot of the
journal called information science) developed from documentation and are
today related to "library and information science". The object of this
must be "documents" or "texts" in a very broad meaning. If we define
information i a physicalist way (like e.g. Dretske), then "information
science is not concerned with human communicative processes, and would
be extremely vague. Can you folle me so far?

kind regards,
Birger

Kind regards,

Birger Hj�rland

Head of Department, Ph.d.
Royal School of Library and Information Science
6 Birketinget
DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark

Phone: +45 32 58 60 66
Fax: +45 32 84 02 01
e-mail: bh@db.dk
homepage: http://www.db.dk/nhs/bh/home_uk.htm
Received on Tue Dec 16 11:45:49 1997