Principia Informatica. Foundational Theory of Information and Principles of Information Services

Abstract

Library and information science (LIS) may alternatively be labeled library, information and documentation studies, LID or just information science, IS. In taking IS serious as a research field, this paper presents an understanding of one of its core concepts (information) and outlines its fundamental principles. It is shown that there exist hierarchies of information processing mechanisms in nature and culture and that IS is concerned with only the highest forms of such mechanisms, which consist of libraries, electronic databases and related information services. Theories about such high-level information systems are closely related to theoretical views of knowledge, language, documents, cognition, science and communication. Information scientists are not the only experts involved in the handling of information, and a view of our special role is presented. The aspiration of this article is to provide a synopsis of the fundamentals of IS: Principia Informatica.