Draft Definitions: information and library needs, wants, demands and uses: a comment

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Abstract
Information science has existed in an uneasy, suspended, state of becoming for an uncomfortable number of years. Yet, despite a stubborn refusal to be born whole, hope for the imminent emergence of a fully fledged ‘science’ remains as fresh as ever. Conferences willingly consider and reconsider the question—what is information science? While some are content to search for the essence that is information science, others are convinced that they have already found it; there is no shortage of teachers ready to assert that information science consists of a particular (usually their own) mix of subjects. It is not uncommon to meet wandering, rather bemused, physicists, chemists and engineers eager to argue that they, too, have discovered something called information science. Members of this latter group may be uncertain of the precise nature of their discovery but are willing to aver that whatever it is it is not librarianship. In this struggle to induce the registrable birth of information science comparatively little attention is paid to the distinct social science bias of this most eclectic of ‘sciences’. This comparative neglect has persisted, surprisingly, despite a shared characteristic of fundamental significance. Both areas are noted for their incredible looseness of terminology and their confused and confusing professional thought and writing.

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