Talk:Information science

A Pseudo-Science?

Hello. As you can imagine, I was the one who wrote the section on whether information science is really a science. I've been reading a bit about the subject to educate myself on the subject, and if we define the idea of ​​"science" and consider that it is such because it always generates new knowledge or makes predictions abouth the world, "information science" does not seem to meet this criterion. It seems more like a hodgepodge of disciplines such as library science, archival science or document science that use techniques to store information, but that does not mean that they generate new knowledge. At most, they use other sciences in an auxiliary way for their work (computer science, statistics, etc.) but again, it does not generate anything new. They do not create the library or archive management software either, for example. Those are just tools that they use (and that were created by software developers to be honest). The "field" seems largely derivative. There is not even a consensus on what to call this "science": "information science?", "informatics"?, "informatology?", "documentology?". There are even university programs that simply call it "Library Science" in a general way but have similar content. If you search on the internet there are entire debates about it. I don't want to say that it is a pseudo-science but... probably it is. Or at best is a “gosh and golly” field . Perhaps a (very large) comment should be added to this page discussing the legitimacy of Information Science in the scientific community.--Bibliotecatdj (talk) 16:54, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Edit: For a better understanding of the terms "documentology" and "informatology" read: https://hal.science/hal-02401819 This article also addresses the issue of why informatics and information sciences are still confused today.--Bibliotecatdj (talk) 14:45, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Split and dab

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Currently this is a WP:CHIMERA article, conflating computing and library concepts. The only hope is to WP:CONSPLIT it and leave a disambiguation page, as per Template:Split and dab. fgnievinski (talk) 00:28, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support. There is also Library and information science, I have just found. Perhaps some of this article needs to go in there? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 06:23, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: While I do not have an opinion on whether to support or oppose this move, I'd love to add that such discerepancy is expected due to the uniqueness of information science as an academic disciple. This is like the only area of study that is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary at the same time. Other disciplines tend to borrow topics to form an identity for themselves but in the case of information science, its identity is still made up of other courses, which can be confusing to readers. Sigh! HandsomeBoy (talk) 09:37, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

• Comment. I would suggest merging library science and information science into library and information science. The term library and information science seems to have overlapping history and useage in academic settings.
  • Have changed my mind. There is significant overlap between library and information sciences, which makes having distinct articles on them without discussion on their interaction difficult. I think a good compromise would be to keep these two seperate articles, but untangle overlap discussion within the interdisciplinary article instead.

• Comment. I have a PhD in Information Science and my research is about the social aspects that lead to the development of machine learning models. It's a mix of social sciences and human-computer interaction. While there are overlaps with library science and a few of my colleagues use some similar theories and methods, the field has grown so much that it is not really the same anymore. I think library science could lie within information science but libraries are not anymore the primary application. In fact, my program dropped the name “library” from the title in the 90s for that reason. Today they teach data science, information management, archives, human-computer interaction, and many other topics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hohenheim (talk • contribs) 19:32, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Oppose. I've a Masters in Information Science, and the article, though it could do with a review for sure, well reflects the many aspects of the discipline noted in the Comments of @HandsomeBoy & @Hohenheim.

— Protalina (talk) 22:15, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.