Librarianship and the Philosophy of Information.
Ken Herold · San Jose State University Scholar Works (San Jose State University) · 2001
Information seems to play a role between mind and matter, an interaction among separate minds and yet associated with a physical medium.• A-dimensional.Both dimensional and non-dimensional forms of information are observable.In some respects information is measurable, as with our familiar bibliographic and computational metrics, and in others it is quite pure, such as when described in terms of states and spaces and in other mathematical guises.• Knowing.Information study has long been intertwined with processes of learning and knowledge.Recent investigations explicitly link information to cognition and the mind, to consciousness and evolution.The identification of life itself, through models of complex adaptive systems or genetic communication networks or other sophisticated ecologies, now infuses information with a substantial function.Whatever our operational understanding of information, as librarians we have come to regard its diverse conceptuality with familiarity within our traditional systems, designs, plans and processes.Our philosophy of information remains implicit while history shows our intimate participation in the emergence of an ostensible epoch.