Information Science, Epistemology and the Knowledge Society. Invited speech, INFO 2008, Cuba. April 2008.

Hjørland, Birger (2008) Information Science, Epistemology and the Knowledge Society. Invited speech, INFO 2008, Cuba. April 2008.. In Proceedings INFO 2008, Cuba.

Abstract

The point of departure of this presentation is the challenges facing Information Science and the information profession. It provides a strategy for how to understand and address information problems and a vision about the role of information professionals in the Knowledge Society. The basic assumption is that any question put to a library or information service can be viewed from different perspectives and that the ability to identify, evaluate and negotiate different perspectives is the way advanced information services differentiate themselves from more primitive kinds of information services. Although it is technological advanced that IR-systems can retrieve documents based on, for example, combinations of words, are such systems primitive in relation to what is needed when information is searched. Knowledge itself is organized socially according to the social division of labour in society (e.g. in disciplines and trades). It is also organized intellectually into theories. Although facts exist, it is the best strategy for information science to assume the principle of fallibilism and to consider all knowledge as provisory and principally open to revision and modification. “Information” should thus be understood as “knowledge claims” produced on the basis of certain preunderstandings and interests. Information services should therefore not just communicate fragmented claims, but should contribute to the mapping of the structures in which knowledge is organized and also provide contextual information needed for evaluating specific knowledge claims. Different perspectives on a given issue tend to develop their own languages, genres, documents, citation patterns, symbolic systems and cultural products. By considering such connections may a lot of indicators be used to identify different perspectives on a given topic. The basic tasks for libraries and information science is to help users conceptualize and search for knowledge claims based on the understanding that any given claim is always produced from a specific perspective, which are often connected with specific social interests and with specific epistemological assumptions.