Rob Klinge Lecture in Social Informatics - 8th in the Series

Defining Information Science

Please join us for the eighth in the spring series of talks sponsored by the Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics. This series is designed to introduce faculty, students and staff across the university to current research in social informatics conducted at IU and around the world.

Speaker: Howard D. White- Professor Emeritus, Drexel University
Topic: How Search is Going Mobile and the Implications for Information
Seeking
Date: Friday April 25, 2008
Time: 2:00-3:30
Place: Indiana University Bloomington, Herman B. Wells Library, Room
LI 001

Talk preceded by an informal gathering with cookies, tea, and
coffee and water. Please stay after the talk for a reception
and informal discussion with the speaker.

ABSTRACT
This is a talk for word people. Over the past half century, many authors have wrestled with the task of succinctly defining the field of information science to which the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology is addressed. This discussion critically examines some of their formulations, in particular those that overreach and those that are muddled, vague, or obscure. The goal is to characterize the field in a way that is clear, concise, and evidence-based. Any such formulation should serve to distinguish the field of information science from the many others to which it is related while at the same time implying their relevance. It should also fit well as a title to an inventory of the major problems on which information scientists in the ARIST sense are conducting research.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Howard D. White is professor emeritus in the College of Information Science and Technology at Drexel University. During his four-decades of published work, he has examined bibliometrics and cocitation analysis, evaluation of reference services, expert systems for reference work, innovative online searching, social science data archives, library publicity, American attitudes toward library censorship, and literature retrieval for meta-analysis and interdisciplinary studies. He has been honored for his many distinguished contributions to the field of information science, including, most recently, the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics with the biennial Derek de Solla Price Memorial Medal for contributions to the quantitative study of science. He has most recently written chapters on information science, relevance, and citation analysis for the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (3rd ed.) and revised his chapter on literature retrieval in meta-analysis in the Handbook of Research Synthesis (2nd ed.). More information about his research is available
at: http://www.cis.drexel.edu/faculty/HUD.Web/HUD.html

The Center for Social Informatics is jointly sponsored by the IU Schools of Informatics and Library and Information Science.

For more details on the talk and the speaker, see:
http://rkcsi.indiana.edu/article.php/2008-spring/138