Dear Colleagues:
I think Pedro's initiative to redirect the discussion is
excellent. With time, I started to get impression that
because Information Science is so young, our discussions
started to remind a puppy which from time to time is
noticing its tail and comes back to the eternal chase.
The tail is of course the meaning of information. I do not
say that it is not an important question to ask. My last
seven years was devoted to this question, and I have
developed my own answer to it, which due to unfortunate
circumstances I did not have opportunity to present in Paris
two years ago, but which has been presented in the
proceedings. Well, to be honest I do believe that my answer
is better than those of others, but I am not so naive to
expect that everyone has to share my conviction.
Yes, I am little bit annoyed by repeated reference to the
definitions which in my opinion have at least formal flaws
("reduction of uncertainty",) or which are catchy phrases
used or abused by those who read the glossary to Bateson's
book, but did not bother to read the text (Bateson had much
more to say than "information is a difference that makes a
difference," whether someone agrees with him or not; I
don't.) But, while many of us labor on the meaning of
information, it would be a very big mistake to focus
attention only on the definition of information.
Let's look at the example of the concept of culture, another
fundamental concept which belongs to the core of
anthropology and several other disciplines. Starting from
Taylor in the nineteenth century there was a continuing
discussion of its meaning. In the middle of the twentieth
century Kroeber and Kluckhohn made a review and summary of
more than 160 different definitions of culture, and then
gave their own. After them the discussion continued (at some
point I have made my own contribution) and the last major
effort in this direction known to me consisted of a special
issue of Current Anthropology from 1999 "Culture - Second
Chance?" But Anthropology would have never developed into
the mature discipline if anthropologists would focus
exclusively on the meaning of the concept of culture. The
discipline has to live its own life with occassional
injection of new thoughts about the meaning of its basic
concepts, and it is natural that there are different ways
people conceptualize their disciplines.
Thus, I believe we should consider "the question" as
important, as a source of inspiration, but we have to do
more about establishing the discipline of Information
Science. It is definitely a non-trivial task, more difficult
than in other domains. The problem starts from the name.
There are at least two (other) disciplines to which the name
Information Science applies. Here in Japan (but also in
other parts of the world), Information Science is most
commonly understood as another name for Computer Science. In
Japan, even Information Theory is not considered part of
Information Science, at least for the officials in the
Ministry of Education. It is Computer Science, that's it.
Information Science is also frequently understood as a new
name for Library Science (try Google for "Information
Science"; first five million entries are about Library
Science.)
So, if we want to build a discipline which would go way
above these (valuable and important as they are) disciplines
of inquiry in its generality, we have to propagate knowledge
about information across the multitude of disciplines where
it manifests. And the best way to propagate this broad
meaning of Information Science is to establish its place in
the undergraduate curriculum, especially of Liberal Arts
type. I have presented this idea before, for instance in a
paper archived on the d-list (dlist.sir.arizona.edu/712/) or
at the panel discussion in Paris (at the time of this
discussion I had very high fever about 40 degree Celsius, so
I really do not remember much what I have said there, but I
believe it was about education.)
Thus, I will not elaborate on the issue why Information
Science is a great chance for curriculum development. But I
would like to reiterate, that the best way to develop and
promote Information Science as it is understood by FIS-ers,
is to work on developing teaching materials and syllabi for
courses teaching it.
Finally, my postulate is: Why don't we discuss the issue how
can we present to a student, university administrator, or
just a passanger sitting next to you on the plane what is
Information Science. Next, why don't we join our efforts to
develop several alternative syllabi for the course:
Information Science 200?
With kind regards,
Marcin
Marcin J. Schroeder, Ph.D.
Professor and Dean of Academic Affairs
Akita International University
Akita, Japan
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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