ABSTRACT
The purpose of this entry is to provide an overview of information science as a field or discipline, including a historical perspective to illustrate the events and forces that shaped it. Information science is a field of professional practice and scientific inquiry dealing with effective communication of information and information objects, particularly knowledge records, among humans in the context of social, organizational, and individual need for and use of information. Information science emerged in the aftermath of World War II, as did a number of other fields, addressing the problem of information explosion and using technology as a solution. Presently, information science deals with the same problems in the Web and digital environments. This entry covers problems addressed by information science, the intellectual structure of the field, and the description of main areas—information retrieval, human information behavior, metric studies, and digital libraries. This entry also includes an account of education related to information science and conclusions about major characteristics.
