Information Science - Information Matters

May 16, 2025 Shalini Urs

Reframing Information: From “Information as Thing” to “Everything as Document” to the Identity of iSchools — Conversations with Michael Buckland

Michael Buckland, a pivotal figure in information science, has profoundly shaped the field through his scholarship and leadership. In this episode of InfoFire, Buckland engaged with me on foundational concepts, practical applications, and historical perspectives, offering provocative critiques that challenge conventional thinking. He declared “information” a problematic term— “It is a bad word; it is to be abolished”—arguing that its overloaded meanings obscure clarity. Similarly, he labeled bibliometrics a “pseudoscience,” questioning its methodological rigor. These rhetorical provocations underscore his effort to reframe information science around precise, document-centric frameworks.

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April 18, 2025 Elisa Tattersall Wallin

All Talk and Few Facts: Reflecting on the Role of Podcasts in Climate Obstruction

What role do podcasts play in spreading information about climate change? For a research project on environmental communication, I explored how these issues are discussed in podcasts. I found that serious channels with the ambition to inform about climate change issues share the space with channels with a dubious agenda and a loose relationship to facts.

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April 12, 2024 Frans van der Sluis

How Everyone Can Agree on What Counts as Quality Information

It’s tricky for people to agree on what counts as quality information. We see this every day with echo chambers on social media, where everyone has their own idea of what’s true or important. This suggests that information quality is a product of our own, individual minds—one that is best captured in “like,” “love,” “haha,” and “wow” buttons on social media. But our research suggests there’s a way to get people on the same page about information quality, and it involves making some changes to how we assess and share information online.

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January 22, 2024 Jesse Dinneen

Life and Death in the Information Society

Throughout our lives we create, consume and accumulate information. And then we die. But what happens – and what should happen – to our information after our death? This question is very complex and thus increasingly intriguing to researchers, but different groups of stakeholders have different values and interests that would shape a potential answer.

Education

September 14, 2023 Sigy George

Five Pillars of Reading

Reading is a fundamental skill that is essential for a child’s academic success in school and beyond. While some children are naturally gifted readers, other children have difficulty with reading and require additional instruction and practice. The five pillars of reading provide an effective framework for teaching and reinforcing these reading skills.

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August 14, 2023 Jenna Hartel

“Library and Information Science” Explained and Embodied in 5 Minutes

“What is Library and Information Science?” in a 5-minute video. LIS is cast as the mediating force between publications and people. Further, the video distinguishes the academic discipline (library and information science) from the related concepts of its institution (the library) and profession (librarianship). Along the way, several key concepts are defined, such as the reference interview, reader’s advisory, bibliographic control, and information retrieval. Three distinct types of libraries are named (public, academic, special).

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July 8, 2023 Irfan Ullah

On the Current State of Query Formulation for Book Search

Formulating a well-defined search query is one of the prominent success factors in getting relevant search results on any search system. However, no latest review or survey exists in the literature that studies query formulation from the perspective of book retrieval. The authors fill this literary gap by studying query formulation in light of research publications from 2007-22.

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July 5, 2023 Tom Mason

Times New Plural – The Multiple Temporalities of Contemporary Life and the Infosphere

We might illustrate the infosphere by picturing a person walking down a street in the weather of the day (rain, sun, wind, etc), negotiating traffic, other people, obstacles, using services, all the while with their smartphone; messaging, listening to a podcast, on a video call, checking bus times, etc. This example highlights everyday plural temporalities; as the various activities occurring here include the general time, work time and ‘free’ time, the temporalities of the online network their device is operating within, the device’s battery life, the time of whoever else is being communicated to via messaging or video call, the time(s) of other people around.