Information Science and Human-Computer Interaction

Efforts to define Information Science are a hardy perennial. As the debate continues, hundreds of papers on the history of the field have appeared (see Burke‘s 2007 metareview). We are not sure what Information Science is, but we‘re getting a grip on its history!

There is greater consensus on the early history, from the antecedents of Library and Information Science through the ―golden years‖ of the 1950s through the 1970s. Burke writes, ―Hardly any publications have explored… the science of information or the information business after the mid-1970‘s.‖ In the late 1970s computer use began to dominate the way many people create, manage, and use information, adding theoretical and organizational complexity.