24th
There are a lot of so-called ‘information scientists’ who don’t seem to know exactly what information science is.
If we agree with Spang-Hanssen that definitions are legitimate ways to boost the status of a profession and research field, we must face the fact that such use can cause internal confusion and lack of self-respect in the discipline. Schrader, among others, has demonstrated this outcome. He studied about 700 definitions of information science and its antecedents from 1900 to 1981 and found that:[T]he literature of information science is characterized by conceptual chaos. This conceptual chaos issues from a variety of problems in the definitional literature of information science: uncritical citing of previous definitions; conflating of study and practice; obsessive claims to scientific status; a narrow view of technology; disregard for literature without the science or technology label; inappropriate analogies; circular definition; and, the multiplicity of vague, contradictory, and sometimes bizarre notions of the nature of the term “information” (Schrader, Schrader, A. M. (1983). Toward a Theory of Library and Information Science. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, 1983). Dissertation Abstracts International, AAT 8401534..
1983, p.99) http://www.capurro.de/infoconcept.html
