Are we at a turning point in digital information? The expansion of the internet was unprecedented; search engines dealt with it in the only way possible - scan as much as they could and throw it all into an inverted index. But now search engines are beginning to experiment with deep web searching and attention to taxonomies, and the Semantic Web is demonstrating how much more can be done with a computer if you give it knowledge. What does this mean for the skills and focus of the information science (or sciences) community? Should information designers and information managers work more closely to create computer based information systems for more effective retrieval? Will information science become part of computer science and does the rise of the term informatics demonstrate the convergence of information science and information technology - a convergence that must surely develop in the years to come? Issues and questions such as these are reflected in this monograph, a collection of essays written by some of the most pre-eminent contributors to the discipline. These peer reviewed perspectives capture insights into advances in, and facets of, information science, a profession in transition. With an introduction from Jack Meadows the key papers are:Meeting the challenge, by Brian VickeryThe developing foundations of information science, by David BawdenThe last 50 years of knowledge organization, by Stella G Dextre ClarkeOn the history of evaluation in IR, by Stephen RobertsonThe information user, by Tom WilsonThe sociological turn in information science, by Blaise CroninFrom chemical documentation to chemoinformatics, by Peter WillettHealth informatics, by Peter A BathSocial informatics and sociotechnical research, by Elisabeth DavenportThe evolution of visual information retrieval, by Peter EnserInformation policies, by Elizabeth OrnaDisparity in professional qualifications and progress in information handling, by Barry MahonElectronic scholarly publishing and open access, by Charles OppenheimSocial software: fun and games, or business tools?, by Wendy A WarrBibliometrics to webometrics, by Mike Thelwall. This monograph previously appeared as a special issue of the Journal of Information Science, published by Sage. Readership: Reproduced here as a monograph, this important collection of perspectives on a skill in transition from a prestigious line-up of authors will now be available to information studies students worldwide and to all those working in the information science field.
