The informational disciplines

This informational diffusion has given the iSchool great latitude and it can accommodate a great diversity of disciplinary lenses – from the very technical, to the social sciences and humanities, to design, to marketing and communication, to public policy, to critical theory, and so on. The Deans’ interviews suggest that this is at once a great strength and a potential weakness, as the iSchool does not have exclusive ownership of a foundational discipline, but rather a multidisciplinary focus on a hard to define phenomenon. Furthermore, this phenomenon has become an object of study in many other disciplines also. 

In this section I discuss the informational disciplines (sic), LIS and Information Science, and conclude with some comments about Library Studies, LIS and the iSchool.

Informational disciplines

Library studies

First, here is a brief note on LS. Buckland (2005) traces the emergence of ‘library science’ to Martin Schrettinger in the early 19th century. The first American library school was opened by Melvil Dewey at Columbia in 1887. Unsurprisingly, a central focus of each of these figures is organization of the collection.

In general, the ‘library school’ has not been a story of optimism and growth. Some closed. Many changed their name to lose ‘library.’ Some were merged into other schools or departments, with various disciplinary emphases.

There is now some variety of provision across types of university and disciplinary configuration. It is common within iSchools who have a library focus to use the term LIS.

Information science(s)

What is Information Science or the Information Sciences? It seems to me that one can identify two very provisional emphases here to help scaffold a discussion. The first is in terms of the emergence of Information Science in the mid twentieth century, with a set of shared concerns, intellectual and personal influences, and professional venues. I label this Information Science Classic in this section, and this is what I usually mean when talking about Information Science (IS). The second is more generic, as Information Science or Information Sciences (or Informatics) is used as a designation of convenience for an academic interest in a range of information-related topics, with or without any specific reference to or acknowledgement of Information Science Classic. We see this emphasis in various places, including in some of the iSchools with non-Library Studies backgrounds (see Cornell or Penn State for example). This may sometimes be used to designate an applied technology focus with more of a social or business dimension than you might typically find in Computer Science.

How many on campus outside the iSchool, I wonder, would have any sense of Information Science Classic? How often would Information Science simply be read in the more generic second way? If you read a page of iSchool faculty interests would anything identify information science distinctively? It would be interesting to explore this further.

Information science – classic

As long as the “discipline” is the primary unit of differentiation in the social system of scholarship, it is only strategic for information science to claim its status as one.” // Petras, V. (2024). The identity of information science. Journal of Documentation.

[Information science] is a somewhat battered and in some ways disoriented field. // Ian Cornelius (1996). Meaning and Method in Information Studies.

Thus, our second major finding, already conveyed, is that information science lacks a strong central author, or group of authors, whose work orients the work of others across the board. The field consists of several specialties around a weak center. // White, H. D., & McCain, K. W. (1998). Visualizing a discipline: An author co-citation analysis of information science, 1972–1995.

We may therefore conclude that information science is an unclear label (a floating signifier) and that there is a great need for clarification and for improved terminological hygiene. // Hjørland, B. (2018). Library and Information Science (LIS), Part 1.

In this final chapter we give an overview of some ideas about the future of the discipline and profession of information science. This has been a source of debate almost since the beginnings of the discipline, and of its sibling, library science. Much of the debate has been negative, with a narrative around disciplines and professions permanently in crisis. And, indeed, if one worries about the structure of academic departments and the names of professional associations one might find cause for concern. If one takes a long view and thinks […] about the power of recorded information and the continuing need for disciplines and professions to deal with it, the concerns come into better focus. // Bawden and Robinson (2022). Introduction to Information Science.

We can see three different, though not incompatible, places for information science in the changing academic firmament. One is a closer alignment with the informatics and data science areas; this is essentially the route taken by the ischools movement. Another is an alignment with media, communications, journalism, publishing and similar subjects. A third is an alignment with cultural studies and the digital humanities. Examples of all three can be seen, and all seem to be viable. It is important, however, not to choose one of these and declare that this is the future of the information sciences. They, and others which will emerge in the future, are simply aspects of the multidiscipline, emhasising different perspectives on the central focus of documents and the human record. // Bawden and Robinson (2022). Introduction to Information Science.

We can identify IS Classic as an academic interest with practical applications which emerged in the mid twentieth century as a response to the increasing volumes of scientific, technical and other information. A historical perspective locates this in the interests of special librarianship, of the documentalist movement in Europe (Otlet et al), and of various scientific and technical approaches to the management of growing information resources (Bush, Bradford, Garfield, and so on).

There is an extensive literature seeking to define what is meant by Information Science. Much of this is summarized in Bawden and Robinson (2022), seen as a definitive, if belated, description of the field. Indeed, White and McCain (1998) noted the lack of a definitive textbook when they were writing at the turn of the century. See Furner (2015), Buckland (2012), Bates (2015), and, recently, Petras (2024), for example contributions.

Definitions often emphasize recorded information, or documents in Buckland’s terms, rather than some of the broader social and cultural dimensions discussed above. Robinson and Bawden’s textbook defines it as a ‘field of study, with recorded information and documentation as its concern, focusing on the components of the information chain, studied through the perspective of domain analysis.’ Bates discussed recorded information and the influential analysis of White and McCain talks about ‘literature systems.’ For Petras, Information Science is also about objects (manifested information) but adds an interesting temporal dimension: ‘Information Science is concerned with how information is manifested across space and time.’

What is striking about this literature is how often it comes back to first principles, and also how the ‘field’ seems less a cumulating, coherent discipline than a set of topical emphases (for example, theoretical information retrieval, quantitative views of the literature, and information seeking behaviors). It can seem like a collection of variably related interests in pursuit of a discipline. Indeed, as the Report mentions, White and McCain (1998) identified two main subdisciplines in their early analysis (information retrieval and citation analysis), and notes their relative independence of each other. Marcia Bates (2022) and others would add information seeking behavior as a third emphasis. Of course, looking across LIS one can identify a variety of additional emphases. Some of this work is summarized in Järvelin, K., & Vakkari, P. (2022).

As late as 2022, Bates, a major figure in the field, was proposing a theory of Information Science, and calling for the various emphases to be finally integrated “into a true disciplinary - not interdisciplinary - a true disciplinary paradigm for the field?” This was in an article where she notes that in the network era “our little field of information science was simply pushed aside by the behemoths of computer science and business.”

This diffusion is seen in how it is described. I chose ‘interest’ above … Bates describes it as a metadiscipline, or earlier, as a meta-field. In this it is like journalism or education. Each is different from what she calls ‘content disciplines’ in that it explores issues which crosscut those disciplines. In Information Science’s case, the cross-cutting interest is the storage and retrieval of knowledge in recorded form. Bawden and Robinson describe Information Science as a ‘field of study’: it is focused on particular problems, but uses a variety of methods and theories.

Petras resists these definitions, preferring to see IS as having “an independent core and locus in the canonical scholarly universe: a discipline.” But this seems like territorial optimism, as does this author’s quote above. Does one have to claim one’s place as a discipline? It is interesting to see this beside Bawden and Robinson’s acknowledgement above that Information Science is likely to rest within a larger disciplinary home (they might have added Business). Indeed, it is revealing to see the acknowledgement in a (the?) leading textbook that Information Science has had an identity issue from the start. 

That said there are strong intellectual traditions and affiliations at play here, around particular topics, academic centers of expertise, researchers/teachers and venues. Familiarity with key figures, central works, and the field's core concepts serves as a shibboleth, marking membership within an ongoing social and intellectual community. The community's activities are supported by dedicated journals, conferences, and professional associations, such as ASIS&T.

It is perhaps appropriate to think of Information Science Classic in this manifestation as an ongoing community, institutionalized in a small set of journals, events and associations.

It is perhaps appropriate to think of Information Science Classic in this manifestation as an ongoing community, institutionalized in a small set of journals, events and associations. Given the changes within the iSchools which are a strong part of the architecture and identity of this community, one wonders if it will persist with quite the same identity.

LIS

In general, I feel that even authors who write a great deal about the structure of the field sometimes use the combo of “LIS” as a matter of habit, and even in the works of the most prominent thinkers, there is no consistency in usage. // Dali, Keren (2015) How we missed the boat: reading scholarship and the field of LIS. New Library World.

Two major structural shifts are revealed in the data: in 1960, LIS changed from a professional field focused on librarianship to an academic field focused on information and use; and in 1990, LIS began to receive a growing number of citations from outside the field, notably from Computer Science and Management, and saw a dramatic increase in the number of authors contributing to the literature of the field, notably from Computer Science and Management. // Larivière, V., Sugimoto, C. R., & Cronin, B. (2012). A bibliometric chronicling of library and information science’s first hundred years. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

This analysis of cognitive structure shows a clear division of LIS into three distinct areas with well-defined objects of study and, to some degree, venues of publication. These three areas can be broadly defined as LS, IS, and scientometrics/bibliometrics. // Milojević, S., Sugimoto, C. R., Yan, E., & Ding, Y. (2011). The cognitive structure of Library and Information Science: Analysis of article title words. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

Many of these definitions allude to the Janus-faced nature of the field—a field that is at once both professional and academic […] As a result, Miksa (1985, 1992) argues that the field has two distinct paradigms—librarianship, which is focused on libraries as institutions, and information science, which is focused on information and its communication. They are informed by different research traditions: librarianship from social science, and IS from mathematical communication theory. And while some researchers (Ingwersen, 1992; Vakkari) consider library science (LS) to be a subfield within a more general field of IS, others (e.g., Saracevic) still consider them to be two related, but separate fields. // Milojević, S., Sugimoto, C. R., Yan, E., & Ding, Y. (2011). The cognitive structure of Library and Information Science: Analysis of article title words. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

For the perspective presented here, libraries are a specialized subject area in the wider field of information science. […] The name library AND information science is redundant for this definition, but links to the historical roots of the fields and is now often used to represent a school’s particular focus on libraries in the disciplinary problem space. // Petras, V. (2024). The identity of information science. Journal of Documentation.

A field of research may institutionalize both cognitively and socially (Whitley, 1984). The former means a shared and coherent understanding of principal research problems and goals, ways of conceptualizing the research objects and methodologies to study them. The latter refers to, e.g. university departments, journals and conferences representing the field of research. It is questionable whether the 50 years have led to cognitive institutionalization in LIS as a whole. There hardly exists a shared understanding of principal research problems and goals. […] Interdisciplinarity is fruitful in developing new knowledge, but isn’t here a risk for LIS being absorbed by the stronger partners – both cognitively and socially? Further study is needed to analyse these questions. // Järvelin, K., & Vakkari, P. (2022). LIS research across 50 years: content analysis of journal articles. Journal of Documentation.

The report focus is LIS. The report says it applies LIS in a ‘general sense of “LIS-oriented” — the range of research, academic programs, faculty, and students who contribute to the profession of librarianship, broadly construed.’

However, this is not always how it is used in practice, although as noted by many, including Dali above, LIS is a very elastic term.

Often ‘Library and Information Science,’ it can sometimes be ‘Library and Information Studies.’ Syntax does not help. It can be parsed in a left-branching way ((library and information) science) suggesting ‘library and information’ is a unit. Sometimes it is parsed in a more flat structure as if ((library science) and (information science)) are two parallel concepts brought together. My sense is that it is used in the former way when the discussion is more library related, but I cannot confirm that.

However, in his interesting historical overview of LIS, Hjørland (2018) notes that “In general, however, the tendency today is to use the terms Information Science and Library and Information Science as synonyms.” And, as if to underline the deep confusion around the term, he describes this guidance to prospective authors posted by the editor of a journal.

8. The editor of Information Research recommends the following use of the terms: “An additional point about LIS—this is much over-used and people are rarely writing about research directly related to libraries when they use it: if you are writing about research in libraries, use ‘library research,’ if you are writing about information research, use ‘information research’ or ‘information science research.’ If you really intend both, use ‘research in librarianship and information science.”” (Wilson 2015).

In support of his view above, he also notes that in the ASIS&T Thesaurus of Information Science, Technology, and Librarianship (2005) LIS is considered synonymous with Information Science, whereas librarianship is considered a related term.

At the same time, Petras claims that Library Studies is a subset of Information Science, and hence argues that LIS as a term is formally redundant. And in another position again, Dali resists the IS encroachment on L.

So, there is some ambiguity in the term.

There is general agreement that LIS was formed by combining library and information science perspectives. From a library point of view, this made sense in the context of the growing digital environment and because the information management, policy or other topics that emerged were not exclusive to the library space. However, equally, there is a recurrent note, as in the Report, that the two have not always sat beside each other comfortably. In fact, it has been suggested (Petras and elsewhere) that the ‘science’ in Information Science was chosen to differentiate the emerging discipline from the more practice-oriented Library Studies.

Referring to this dual nature, Milojević et al (2011) note the Janus-faced nature of the field. In their analysis of article words across a range of LIS journals they conclude that there is “a clear division of LIS into three distinct areas with well-defined objects of study and, to some degree, venues of publication.” The three areas “can be broadly defined as LS, IS, and scientometrics/bibliometrics.” They go on to more tentatively suggest that information seeking behavior may be establishing itself as another first order category. One striking feature of the analysis is the separated clustering they discovered of IS and LS journals.

In a later study, Järvelin & Vakkari (2022) carry out a content analysis of 30 LIS journals. They question “whether the 50 years have led to cognitive institutionalization in LIS as a whole” noting that there “hardly exists a shared understanding of principal research problems and goals.” They further observe that in some areas LIS researchers partner with other disciplines, and wonder whether there is a risk of LIS being absorbed by stronger partners both cognitively and socially (partners include computer science, communications, management).

Of course, LIS has indeed been organizationally subsumed into other departments/schools for some time (examples include education, business, computing, communications).

Another recurrent feature of discussion and debate is the low level of theory formation within the field. Not unexpectedly, given the nature of its interests there is a high level of borrowing from other fields. A recent survey of theory formation and use in LIS (Roy & Mukhopadhyay, 2023) concludes rather dramatically by claiming that LIS is facing a “theory crisis.” I am not sure about this, but it is certainly a factor contributing to perceptions of the prestige of the field.

Finally, both Järvelin & Vakkari (2022) and Larivière et al (2012) note a decline in the proportion of publications on librarianship specifically, and a growth in informational and other topics. This is not too surprising, but one wonders how much of a factor the relative balance of L and IS faculty in LIS departments/schools was, acknowledging the absence of clear boundaries.

So, LIS is a confusing term for a diffuse field which has not cohered around a sense of itself as a single entity. The term may be used synonymously with Information Science, and it may be used in a library context to acknowledge a wider informational dimension or to sound more ‘rigorous.’ If it is being used in a specific way, it really needs to be qualified to make this clear.

Again, however, LIS may also have a strong social dimension, whatever about its disciplinary coherence. It references shared schools, conferences, journals, and influences. Although, that said, it is interesting to note the strong divide between IS and L in some of the analysis above.

Information sciences, informatics, iSchool

Some iSchools grew out of Library Science Schools, some out of Computer Science Schools, some have merged with Communication Departments, some have merged with Management—but the telling characteristic of each is that they are interdisciplinary and all share the same goal—to enable their graduates to become successful professionals based on their combined expertise in information, technology, and management. // Liddy, E. D. (2014). iSchools & the iSchool at Syracuse University.

As I noted in the introduction, my view of iSchools has been a little idealistic, given their variety, seeing them as multidisciplinary homes for a variety of informational interests. I suggested that a working characterization might be schools with a sociotechnical perspective that consider technology, people and organizations within a multidisciplinary setting.

Of course, actually existing iSchools are quite various, in terms of breadth of faculty expertise, configuration within the university, and so on. And their number has grown, if membership of the iSchools Organization is a measure. The designation has come to be applied less exclusively as membership has grown. At the time of writing, there are 130 members of this group.

Some offer undergraduate degrees. There are graduate degrees in information systems, data science, and other in-demand areas. There is a strong focus on general IT issues with a social and business dimension. They teach and research topics arising from the construction, deployment and management of information systems across industry, business, educational, or other, domains. This means that some may have a wider bandwidth connection to industry, in terms of partnership and vocational preparation. There may be local drivers around income, employability and overseas students.

At the same time, many have broad research agendas, and they are hospitable to a range of informational perspectives in the terms above, looking at the ramifications of informational organization of social and cultural phenomena. (The Center for an Informed Public at UW is an example.)

It is interesting to note that the iSchools Organization ‘about’ page does not mention libraries or library studies, again as of this writing, although it does include what may be a stock photo of the (all male) busts from the Long Room of Trinity College Dublin, one of the most photographed libraries in the world, and a common media recourse when a library is required.

It is interesting to note that the iSchools Organization ‘about’ page does not mention libraries or library studies, again as of this writing, although it does include what may be a stock photo of the (all male) busts from the Long Room of Trinity College Dublin, one of the most photographed libraries in the world, and a common media recourse when a library is required.

Not all of the iSchools have a library or LIS heritage, and various terms may be used in quite general ways hospitable to many dimensions of information education and research. These include Information Science (with or without a connection to what I call Classic Information Science), Information Sciences and Informatics.

Library studies, information science, LIS and the iSchool

The difference between a multidisciplinary and an interdisciplinary approach is one thread in discussions, with some favoring a multidisciplinary approach (e.g. Bates, 2022). The contrast is between an independent focus which cooperates in a peer-to-peer way versus a more integrated approach in which the characteristics of an individual approach may be subsumed.

A discussion of multidisciplinarity or interdisciplinarity depends on some scale of activity. Library studies has much to gain from a rich mix, in educational and research terms. This is both within the disciplinary mix of the iSchool, and potentially across campus. That depends on Library Studies itself thriving, in education and research terms as part of the mix. As discussed, this presents challenges in the R1 setting, which for scale, prestige and other reasons favors library studies sitting within a broader disciplinary setting. I discussed library studies in the previous section.

Is Information Science (Classic) in a different place? It brings a legacy of interesting work in specialisms which are not exclusive to it (information retrieval, information seeking behavior, domain analysis, …) and a community who may share some traditions and social venues. However, as is evident from the literature, it doesn’t bring a coherent body of work organized around a well-understood discipline. This is especially the case when one notes that the research interests of IS Classic are not exclusively the concern of IS Classic. Indeed, this becomes very apparent within the broader umbrella of the iSchool, which contains researchers and educators exploring similar issues and coming from different disciplinary traditions.

This broader iSchool informational agenda addresses core IS issues in a hybrid disciplinary setting. Information Science Classic still has some organizational momentum, embedded in schools and the social apparatus of a community (journals, ASIS&T, …), but it seems doubtful that it has a strong future as a distinct discipline recognized within the university canon. Bawden and Robinson suggest that it might live in several possible disciplinary homes. However, as with LIS below, one wonders if the continued academic transformation and relocation of the informational disciplines might weaken also the social affiliations of Information Science Classic.

The discussion of LIS in the report is both interesting and ambivalent. It is not clear how you circumscribe LIS. And, although there is an emphasis on LIS faculty, it is not clear either how you circumscribe the LIS faculty population.  The report leans to a strong LIS association with librarianship, although, as discussed above, this is not universally true of its usage.

Is it somebody who has a PhD from a current ‘LIS school’? If this is so, and if the trends outlined in the report continue, presumably some of those LIS graduates with a strong IS or technical formation may naturally gravitate to other options in the iSchool. What is an LIS concentration when the IS is increasingly intermingled in the broader disciplinary array of the iSchool?

Is it a particular disciplinary focus? Well, as discussed throughout, there is an informational dimension to many subjects, which means that the IS part of LIS is intellectually less distinctive over time (even if there remains a community distinction, as discussed). The L part of LIS is more distinctive, one might as well just say LS?

Is it a matter of values? The discussion of LIS values reinforces this library emphasis (are those values espoused by the tradition of theoretical IR researchers or by those who are traditionally active in information systems?)

Is it a shared history, tradition and way of thinking? Undoubtedly. And, in this context, many researchers and teachers readily self-identify in an LIS tradition. However, as discussed here, LIS may be used in different ways and this identity may gradually dilute given changes in the iSchools themselves which have been part of the social institutionalization of LIS.

Much of the time whether one uses LS or LIS does not matter much. However, it makes sense to be clear what you are talking about - especially when it matters, as, for example, given the concerns of the report, in a recruitment discussion in an iSchool context.

There is also a variety of ways in which you want to talk about the library which are not about information processing or management.

Suggesting a preference for LS is not to be isolationist. Quite the contrary: LS will benefit from the multidisciplinarity of the iSchool in both research and education terms.

Cross-LAMination

Several iSchools have expertise in libraries, archives and museums and offer degrees across the range. Archives and libraries may be a more common combination.

I have suggested it would be interesting to consider a horizontal LAM expansion to include archival studies (and potentially museum studies), in future iterations. It is important to recognize their distinct intellectual, social and vocational contexts and traditions. In my recommendations I ask if a LAM Forward initiative would create a stronger story than an LIS Forward one.

A note on other disciplines

Historically, several other disciplines had an informational interest. These include, for example, Management Information Systems in a business setting, or Communications/Media studies, or Journalism.

While there might be some porosity of borders, each has a clear center of gravity. Interestingly, the first two of these at least might find a home in a current iSchool.

Of course, there are also significant examples of influential researchers in the Information Science Classic tradition who find a home in other disciplines, information retrieval in computer science, notably, but also in the social sciences, communications or elsewhere.

However, as more activities have become informationalized, many other disciplines have a strong, explicitly informational dimension. The sciences (e.g. bioinformatics), geography, the digital humanities, and so on. And the Report notes the range of disciplines with a strong informational flavor.

Ischools may often promote their work by repeating what Castells above calls the common-sense view that information or knowledge is everywhere. This is a double-edged proposition, and goes to iSchool identity. While it may suggest that the study of information can anchor a school, it can also suggest a lack of distinction. 

Coda: overview of and links to full contribution

Collection: LIS Forward (2025) Responses to the LIS Forward Position Paper: Ensuring a Vibrant Future for LIS in iSchools, The Friday Harbor Papers, Volume 2. [pdf]

Contribution: Dempsey, L. (2025). Library Studies, the Informational Disciplines, and the iSchool: Some Remarks Prompted by LIS Forward. In LIS Forward (2025) Responses to the LIS Forward Position Paper: Ensuring a Vibrant Future for LIS in iSchools, The Friday Harbor Papers, Volume 2. [pdf]

Contents: Here are the sections from my contribution. Where I have excerpted them on this site, I provide a link.

• 1 Introduction [and summary] [excerpted here]
• 2 Information: a brief schematic history [excerpted here]
• 3 Libraries and library studies [excerpted here]
• 4 Informational disciplines [excerpted here]
• 5 On the dissemination of ideas and innovation [excerpted here]
• 6 Symbolic capital
• 7 Recommendations and candidate recommendations
• Coda 1: Google Ngram
• Coda 2: Personal position
• References

References

Bates, M.J. (2015). The information professions: knowledge, memory, heritage. Information Research, 20(1). https://informationr.net/ir/20-1/paper655.html

Bates, M.J. (2022). A proto-paradigm for information science research. Information Research, 27(Special issue). https://informationr.net/ir/27-SpIssue/CoLIS2022/colis2201.html

Bawden, D., & Robinson, L. (2022). Introduction to Information Science (Second). Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Introduction-to-Information-Science/Bawden-Robinson/p/book/9781783304950

Buckland, M. (2005). Information schools: A Monk, Library Science, and the Information Age. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/33g728qk

Buckland, M. (2012). What kind of science can information science be? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21656

Cornelius, I. (1996). Meaning and method in information studies. Ablex Pub.

Dali, K. (2015). How we missed the boat: reading scholarship and the field of LIS. New Library World, 116(9/10), 477–502. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw-01-2015-0007

Furner, J. (2015). Information science is neither. Library Trends, 63(3). https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2015.0009

Hjørland, B. (2018). Library and Information Science (LIS), Part 1. Knowledge organization, 45(3), 232–254. https://doi.org/10.5771/0943-7444-2018-3-232

Järvelin, K., & Vakkari, P. (2022). LIS research across 50 years: content analysis of journal articles. Journal of Documentation, 78(7), 65–88. https://doi.org/10.1108/jd-03-2021-0062

Larivière, V., Sugimoto, C. R., & Cronin, B. (2012). A bibliometric chronicling of library and information science’s first hundred years. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(5), 997–1016. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.22645

Liddy, E. D. (2014). iSchools & the iSchool at Syracuse University. In C. Chen & R. Larsen (Eds.), Library and Information Sciences, Trends and Research (pp. 31–37). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54812-3_4

Milojević, S., Sugimoto, C. R., Yan, E., & Ding, Y. (2011). The cognitive structure of Library and Information Science: Analysis of article title words. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62(10), 1933–1953. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21602

Petras, V. (2024). The identity of information science. Journal of Documentation, 80(3), 579–596. https://doi.org/10.1108/jd-04-2023-0074

Roy, B. K., & Mukhopadhyay, P. (2023). Theoretical Backbone of Library and Information Science: A Quest. LIBER Quarterly: The Journal of the Association of European Research Libraries, 33(1), 1–57. https://doi.org/10.53377/lq.13269

White, H. D., & McCain, K. W. (1998). Visualizing a discipline: An author co-citation analysis of information science, 1972–1995. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 49(4), 327–355. https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(19980401)49:4<327::aid-asi4>3.0.co;2-4

Feature picture: I took the picture in the somewhat grim Penitentiary in Mansfield, Ohio.