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Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2013 01:45:20 -0400 From: Marcia J. Bates <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Subject: People, Information, Technology To Gretchen et al.: Comments on the discussion to this point: Documentation of technical specifications is one use of the term, but not the use that was meant. Documentation was a movement, most notably associated with Suzanne Briet (see description at Michael Buckland's website). The idea was to collect and manage (and theorize about) the documentation of scientific and related activities--kind of a more intensive technical special librarianship. Should be people, not users, because the research on information behavior or practices is about all people, not just people who "use" a particular institution. Should be "Information technology," not just "technology." A shovel, an arrow, an electrical transformer--these are all technologies, but are not information technologies. Regarding ASIST: The "and technology" is not the latest change. Sounds like you didn't notice that ASIST changed its name to Association for Information Science and Technology. I was one of the ones talking up the three-part Venn diagram idea as long ago as the ASIST mid-year conference in Portland, Oregon--1991 or 1992? Dan Atkins of Michigan pushed it al lot, and I don't know how many other people in the iSchool world. However, now that the concept has become so popular at iSchools and iConferences, I think we are at risk of forgetting that the key term in the threesome is "information." That, after all, is the one of those three terms of the Venn diagram that appears in the name of the field "information science." A lot of other fields deal with people and with information technology. Only ours deals with information collection, storage, organization, retrieval, and use, as well as information management and information policy. Information is so pervasive in society that even we forget sometimes that the core of understanding of its role in people's lives and in information institutions still resides in our field. Please also see my speech, given at the ALISE, 2012 conference, which is posted at my website, titled "The Information Professions: Knowledge, Memory, Heritage." http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/articles/pdf/InfoProfessions.pdf I talk a lot in there about the several information disciplines and what characterizes them. Marcia -- Marcia J. Bates, Ph.D. Professor Emerita Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science Editor, Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 3rd Ed. Department of Information Studies Graduate School of Education and Information Studies University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Los Angeles, CA 90095-1520 USA Tel: 510-526-1049 Web: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/