INFORMATION SYSTEMS MEETS INFORMATION SCIENCE

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INFORMATION SYSTEMSMEETSINFORMATION SCIENCE

• Ian Beeson Jackie Chelin
• University of the West of England
• Bristol UK
• ian.beeson/jacqueline.chelin_at_uwe.ac.uk

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an MSc in Info Library Management
DISSERTATION IN ILM
ORGANISING INFORMATION
MANAGEMENT OF INFO LIB SERVICES
RESEARCH METHODS IN ILM
OPTION 3
INFORMATION ITS USERS
TRANSFERABLE MANAGEMENT SKILLS
OPTION 1
OPTION 2
.in mounting this programme, we noticed
considerable overlap of interest, but also
differences of meaning and emphasis around major
concepts
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definitions of Info Sys and Info Sci

• Information Systems (acc. to UKAIS)
• the means by which organisations and people,
  utilising information technologies, gather,
  process, store, use and disseminate information
• Information Science (acc. to IIS)
• broad concepts and theories of information
  systems and information and communication
  technologies insofar as they apply to the
  principles and practices of information
  management
• questions
• relation to management and organisations
• profession vs academic discipline
• central object of interest

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convergence of Info Sys and Info Sci?

• Info Sys and Info Sci have previously diverged
• Info Sci documents and libraries
• Info Sys databases and organisations
• particularly since the WWW, there are signs of
  convergence
• both interested in categorisation, metadata,
  search and retrieval
• but perhaps they still differ in primary object
  of interest
• conjunct subjects, disjunct disciplines (Ellis,
  by citation analysis)
• the subject overlap is superficial (Monarch, by
  leximapping)

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the main object of interest

• for Information Science
• information itself, as contained in documents
• organisation of and access to that information
• for Information Systems
• some further objective.
• usually the support or automation of some area of
  work
• well consider two key terms classification and
  search under the two perspectives

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the expansion of IT

• increased volumes of information
• diversification of formats
• digitisation a generalisation of text?
• generalisation of information to all forms of
  symbolic representation (eg entertainment)
• urgent problems of overload, organisation, and
  retrieval
• decoupling of information from local
  organisational context
• bigger challenges for Info Sys than Info Sci

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classification search Info Sci perspective

• already central features of the discipline
• practical problems to the fore
• complexity and dynamism of classification schemes
• loss of local knowledge and salience of
  classification (in libraries) as items arrive
  pre-classified
• metadata standardisation efforts (eg Dublin Core)
• proliferation of end-user databases produces
  emphasis on generic search skills or preference
  for familiar interfaces
• power of search engines makes search simple but
  exacerbates problems of relevance and selection

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classification search Info Sys perspective

• less central/ more specific in Info Sys, to date
• classification not a major issue for local
  systems
• search mainly delivered through query into
  structured records (rather than full text)
• both handled principally through database systems
• rise of WWW thrusts these aspects into the
  foreground for Info Sys
• web design full text, multimedia interface, with
  hyperlinking and metadata
• information architecture structuring an
  organisations information for external and
  trans-organisational use

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complementarity of Info Sci and Info Sys

• Info Sys can learn from Info Sci about
  classification, controlled vocabularies and
  metadata, search and retrieval
• however, Info Sys is interested in the use and
  impact of IT in work settings
• Info Sys needs to transfer these concepts from
  Info Sci cautiously
• Info Sci can benefit from an expansion of the
  use/ impact perspective
• we look forward to exploring the meeting of Info
  Sci and Info Sys in the implementation of the new
  MSc