Information Without Information Studies

Abstract

A method is suggested of conducting a meta-analysis of contributions to the literature on the nature of information—one that involves identification of authors’ ontological commitments. A framework is proposed for defining the range of ontological possibilities for things that have been called “information”; the ontological commitments of some of those whose work may be less familiar to the Library and Information Science (LIS) community are examined; and some residual confusion about the nature of the relationships among different conceptions of information is cleared up. It is tentatively concluded that any approach to conceptualizing information that downplays the contributions of LIS—i.e., information without information studies—is needlessly impoverished, not least on account of the range of ontological possibilities that it misses.