Literature/1991/Buckland

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Buckland, Michael (1991). "Information as Thing." Journal of the American Society for Information Science 42 (5): 351-360.

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Excerpts

  • Summary : Numerous definitions have been proposed for "information". One important use of "information" is to denote knowledge imparted; another is the denote the process of informing. Some leading theorists have dismissed the attributive use of "information" to refer to things that are informative. However, "information-as-thing" deserves careful examination, partly because it is the only form of information with which information systems can deal directly. People are informed not only by intentional communications, but by a wide variety of objects and events. Being "informative" is situational and it would be rash to state of any thing that it might not be informative, hence information, in some conceivable situation. Varieties of "information-as-thing" vary in their physical characteristics and so are not equally suited for storage and retrieval. There is, however, considerable scope for using representations instead.
  • Whatever information storage and retrieval systems store and retrieve is necessarily "information-as-thing". [1]

See also

Implicit metaphysical force, significance
  • Traue, James Edward (1991). Committed to Print: Selected Essays in Praise of the Common Culture of the Book. Victoria University Press. [+]
  • Wilson, Patrick (1977). Public Knowledge, Private Ignorance: Toward a Library and Information Policy. Greenwood Publishing Group. [+]
  • Belkin, Nicholas J. & Stephen E. Robertson (1976). "Information Science and the Phenomenon of Information," Journal of the American Society for Information Science (Jul-Aug 1976) 27 (4): 197-204. [+]
  • Wersig, G. & U. Neveling (1975). "The Phenomena of Interest to Information Science." The Information Scientist. 9 (4): 127-140. [+]
  • Bernal, J. D. (1939). The Social Function of Science. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. [+]
  • Wells, H. G. (1938). World Brain. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co. [+]
Explicit physical form, signification
  • Gorman, Michael (2004). "Google and God's Mind: The problem is, information isn't knowledge." (Commentary) Los Angeles Times, December 17, 2004. [+]
  • Buckland, Michael (1991). "Information as Thing." Journal of the American Society for Information Science 42 (5): 351-360. [+]
  • Farradane, Jason (1979). "The Nature of Information," Journal of Information Science 1(1): 13-17. [+]

Notes

  1. ↑ In his materialist perspective of information science, he gives the highest priority to the information system over "the influence of language upon thought" as per Ogden, C. K. & I. A. Richards (1923). The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. [+]
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