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This paper analyses the theoretical and the epistemological assumptions of information science (IS). Different views of knowledge underlie all major issues in IS. Epistemological theories have a fundamental impact on theories about users, their cognition and information seeking behaviour, on subject analysis, and on classification. They have also fundamental impact on information retrieval, on the understanding of “information”, on the view of documents and their role in communication, on information selection, on theories about the functions of information systems and on the role of information professionals. IS must be based on epistemological knowledge, which avoids blind alleys and is not outdated. The paper shows limitations in the dominant approaches to IS and proposes alternative viewpoints.

This article is a contribution to the development of a comprehensive interdisciplinary theory of LIS in the hope of giving a more precise evaluation of its current problems. The article describes an interdisciplinary framework for lis, especially information retrieval (IR), in a way that goes beyond the cognitivist ‘information processing paradigm’. The main problem of this paradigm is that its concept of information and language does not deal in a systematic way with how social and cultural dynamics set the contexts that determine the meaning of those signs and words that are the basic tools for the organisation and retrieving of documents in LIS. The paradigm does not distinguish clearly enough between how the computer manipulates signs and how librarians work with meaning in practice when they design and run document mediating systems. The ‘cognitive viewpoint’ of Ingwersen and Belkin makes clear that information is not objective, but rather only potential, until it is interpreted by an individual mind with its own internal mental world view and purposes. It facilitates further study of the social pragmatic conditions for the interpretation of concepts. This approach is not yet fully developed. The domain analytic paradigm of Hjørland and Albrechtsen is a conceptual realisation of an important aspect of this area. In the present paper we make a further development of a non‐reductionistic and interdisciplinary view of information and human social communication by texts in the light of second‐order cybernetics, where information is seen as ‘a difference which makes a difference’ for a living autopoietic (self‐organised, self‐creating) system. Other key ideas are from the semiotics of Peirce and also Warner. This is the understanding of signs as a triadic relation between an object, a representation and an interpretant. Information is the interpretation of signs by living, feeling, self‐organising, biological, psychological and social systems. Signification is created and con‐trolled in a cybernetic way within social systems and is communicated through what Luhmann calls generalised media, such as science and art. The modern socio‐linguistic concept ‘discourse communities’ and Wittgenstein's ‘language game’ concept give a further pragmatic description of the self‐organising system's dynamic that determines the meaning of words in a social context. As Blair and Liebenau and Backhouse point out in their work it is these semantic fields of signification that are the true pragmatic tools of knowledge organ‐isation and document retrieval. Methodologically they are the first systems to be analysed when designing document mediating systems as they set the context for the meaning of concepts. Several practical and analytical methods from linguistics and the sociology of knowledge can be used in combination with standard methodology to reveal the significant language games behind document mediation.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a dialogically based theory of documentary practices and document work as a promising framework for studying activities that are often conceptualised as information behaviour or information practices within Library and Information Science (LIS).

An empirical example – a lesson on how to read railway timetables – is presented. The lesson stems from a research project including 223 Swedish lessons recorded in Swedish primary schools 1967-1969. It is argued that this lesson, as many empirical situations within LIS research, can fruitfully be regarded as documentary practices which include document work such as reading, rather than instances of information behaviour.

It is found that the theoretical perspective of dialogism could contribute to the theory development within LIS, and function as a bridge between different subfields such as reading studies and documentary practices.

The framework is yet to be applied on a larger scale. This would require a willingness to go beyond the entrenched idea of information as the core theoretical concept and empirical object of study within LIS.

The theoretical framework offers a view of the relations between individuals, documents, and social contexts, through which it is possible to explore the social significance of core LIS concerns such as reading, literacy, and document work.

The theoretical framework offers an alternative to the monologist, information-based theories and models of people’s behaviours and practices prevalent in LIS.

As an emerging discipline, data science represents a vital new current of school of library and information science (LIS) education. However, it remains unclear how it relates to information science within LIS schools. The purpose of this paper is to clarify this issue.

Mission statement and nature of both data science and information science are analyzed by reviewing existing work in the two disciplines and drawing DIKW hierarchy. It looks at the ways in which information science theories bring new insights and shed new light on fundamentals of data science.

Data science and information science are twin disciplines by nature. The mission, task and nature of data science are consistent with those of information science. They greatly overlap and share similar concerns. Furthermore, they can complement each other. LIS school should integrate both sciences and develop organizational ambidexterity. Information science can make unique contributions to data science research, including conception of data, data quality control, data librarianship and theory dualism. Document theory, as a promising direction of unified information science, should be introduced to data science to solve the disciplinary divide.

The results of this paper may contribute to the integration of data science and information science within LIS schools and iSchools. It has particular value for LIS school development and reform in the age of big data.

This conceptual article aims to discuss how the concept of a document and documentation along with a general document model could inform us in the design and engineering of information or rather documentation systems.

This paper presents a broad and complementary document model, derived from the last couple of decades' discussion on what is a document and what is documentation. This model is used as a basis for a method, a conceptual tool or a template for analysis of socio‐technical systems.

The authors contend that the document systems analysis is a holistic approach compared to the traditional systems design and engineering reductionist approach, and also in the context of sociotechnical systems design. The document model is a taxonomy of the constituents of the document and, the authors argue, a potential communication tool in systems design.

The document model presented in this article is discussed more or less solely in the context of information systems design, specifically sociotechnical systems. Moreover, the authors have tried to fit the theory and model within this context here, even though the concepts and thoughts can have much more general implications.

This presentation of a novel document model and framework is presented as a potential tool for systems analysis and design. The authors regard this as a realistic vision for the framework, but at the current stage of development for the model it is probably more useful as draft for such a tool or framework; a point of departure for the discussion of practical – and theoretical – implications of a broad and holistic document model.

A novel, unpublished document model, derived from theoretical discourses of document ontology in the “neo‐documentalist” movement spawned from a particular research community in Tromsø, Norway, is presented and discussed in the light of information systems design.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to investigate the documentality of human remains in museum and research collections. Second, to provide a rationale for a processual model of documentation, which can account for their repatriation and eventual burial.

This paper uses a multidisciplinary approach to examine the repatriation issue. It considers an ethical argument developed to support claims for repatriation: the nominal identification of a body as a universal criterion for its burial. Based on Igor Kopytoff’s processual model of commoditisation, it looks to cultural anthropology to help explain how objects can move between a document and non-document state.

Human remains can be understood as examples of information-as-thing. However, while document theory can readily account for the expanding realm of documentation, it cannot adequately accommodate instances where documentality is revoked, and when something ceases to be a document. When a human biological specimen is returned, the process that made it serve as a document is effectively reversed. When remains are interred, they revert to their primary standing, as people. The process of becoming a document is therefore not unidirectional, and document status not permanent.

The implications of a processual model of documentation are discussed. Such a model must be able to account for things as they move into and out of the document state, and where the characteristics of documentality change through time.

This paper explores problematic material not usually discussed in relation to document theory. The repatriation movement poses a challenge to a discourse predicated on documentation as a progressively expanding field.

The different senses of the term information in physical, biological and social interpretations, and the possibility of connections between them, are addressed. Special attention is paid to Hofkirchner's Unified Theory of Information (UTI), proposing an integrated view in which the notion of information gets additional properties as one moves from the physical to the biological and the social realms. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

UTI is compared to other views of information, especially to two theories complementing several ideas of it: the theory of the hypertextual documental universe (“docuverse”) and the theory of integrative levels of reality. Two alternative applications of the complex of these three theories are discussed: a pragmatical, hermeneutic one, and a more ambitious realist, ontological one. The latter can be extended until considering information (“bit”) together with matter-energy (“it”) as a fundamental element in the world. Problems and opportunities with each view are discussed.

It is found that the common ground for all three theories is an evolutionary approach, paying attention to the phylogenetic connections between the different meanings of information.

Other theories of information, like Leontiev's, are not discussed as not especially related to the focus of the approach.

The paper builds on previously unnoticed affinities between different families of information-related theories, showing how each of them can provide fruitful complements to the other ones in clarifying the nature of information.

This paper investigates the problem of the labelling of the library, documentation and information field with particular emphasis on the terms ‘information’ and ‘document’. What influences introduced the concept of ‘information’ into the library field in the middle of the twentieth century? What kind of theoretical orientations have dominated the field, and how are these orientations linked to epistemological assumptions? What is the implication of the recent influence of socially oriented epistemologies for such basic concepts in IS as ‘information’ and ‘document’? The article explores these problems and advocates an approach with emphasis on documents and on the concept ‘memory institutions’ as generic terms for the central object of study.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a new and useful formulation of relevance.

This paper is formulated as a conceptual argument. It makes the case for the utility of considering relevance to be function of use in creative processes.

There are several corollaries to formulating relevance as a function of use. These include the idea that objects by themselves cannot be relevant since use assumes interaction; the affordances of objects and how they are perceived can affect what becomes relevant but are not in themselves relevant; relevance is not an essential characteristic of objects; relevance is transient; potential relevance (what might be relevant in the future) can be distinguished from what is relevant in use and from what has been relevant in the past.

The paper shows that its new formulation of relevance brings improved conceptual and terminological clarity to the discourse about relevance in information science. It demonstrates that how relevance is articulated conceptually is important as its conceptualization can affect the ways that users are able to make use of information systems and, by extension, how information systems can facilitate or disable the co-production of creative outcomes. The paper also usefully expands investigative opportunities by suggesting relevance and creativity are interrelated.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to make a contribution to the theoretical understanding of documents and documentary agency in society through examples from a defined institutional and professional setting; and second, to create an understanding for the role of ethical codes in the process of defining and developing modern librarianship.

This study analyses the role of documentation carrying content of professional ethics in the formulation of modern librarianship. This is done through a series of example documents of various kinds, such as founding charters, peer handbooks and ethical codes systematically analysed through the use of document theory and theory on institutional change.

The findings of this study suggest that documents pronouncing ethical self-regulation within librarianship play a primarily legitimising role in situations where new types of libraries emerge or when libraries adapt to social change. The study proposes legitimacy as a key aspect of documentality, thus supplementing the established understanding of the concept.

This study is the first to analyse the role of ethical codes in libraries using document theory. It brings new knowledge to the role of ethical self-regulation in librarianship over time and in different institutional contexts. In suggesting a developed definition of documentality, it contributes to the theoretical understanding of the role of documents and documentation in institutions and in society at large.