Literature/1976/Belkin

Excerpts

 * In their paper, Wersig and Neveling find that what is now called information science developed, historically:  "... not because of a specific phenomenon which always existed before and which now becomes an object of study -- but because of a new necessity to study a problem which has completely changed its relevance to society. Nowadays the problem of transmitting knowledge to those who need it is a social responsibility, and this social responsibility seems to be the real background of 'information science'."  Their argument, essentially, is that the present discipline arose from the rather disconnected previous activities generally aimed at the problem stated above, especially because that problem has become vastly more important (to society) in recent years. (p. 197)
 * Table 3. The Basic Phenomena of Information Science  Of these three phenomena, information science has up to now regarded the first as its major concern; some interest has been shown in the second, but study of this phenomenon has largely been concentrated in the context of psychology or education. The third phenomenon remains virtually virgin territory. (p. 202)