Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, Volume 40

Citation

Bawden, D. (2006), "Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, Volume 40", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 62 No. 5, pp. 634-635. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410610688769

Reviewing volumes 38 and 39 of ARIST, in issue 1 of volume 6 of Journal of Documentation, Michael Buckland noted two changes in ARIST over the years, The first is the move from a recurrent coverage of broad topics, to a series of chapters each with a unique scope. The second is the inclusion of chapters which serve as introductions, even tutorials, for their topic, rather than updating for those already familiar with it. Both these trends are evident in this latest volume. Blaise Cronin, in his introduction to this 40th ARIST, notes another: that of change and continuity. Some of the chapters in the current volume, he notes, would not have looked out of place in the inaugural volume; for example, the chapters on information seeking, on the history of information, and on semantic relationships. Conversely, others deal with topics that would not have been envisaged in 1966, such as open access, and the “geographies” of the internet.

The volume is divided into four sections, dealing respectively with information and society, technologies and systems, information needs and use, and theoretical perspectives.

The first section includes articles on the micro‐ and macro‐economics of information (Sandra Braman), the geographies of the internet (Matthew Zook), and the Open Access movement (Carl Drott). Braman's article, in particular, is a tour de force, distilling an extensive literature into a readable and accessible format.

In the technology and systems section, Hsinchun Chen and Jennifer Xu address the (sadly) all‐too topical issue of intelligence and security informatics, from a strongly US‐perspective. The other chapters, both admirable distillations, deal with more “traditional” information science topics: the evaluation of retrieval systems, in Donna Harman and Ellen Voorhees' overview of the TREC conferences, and in a review of semantic relations in information organisation and retrieval (including linguistic and psychological perspectives) by Christopher Khoo and Jin‐Cheon Na.

The third section, devoted to information needs and use, opens with an article on information behaviour, by Donald Case. This is in what Buckland has noted as the “old style” of ARIST, in this case giving an analysis of the literature of information behaviour between 2001 and 2004; the earlier date being chosen so as to follow on from reviews of the topic in previous ARIST volumes. It is, as one might expect from the author, written with authority and clarity. Anu MacIntosh‐Murray and Chun Wei Choo review an intriguingly specific and important aspect; that of healthcare failures, clinical adverse events, which may be attributed in some way to information failures. The other chapters in this section deal with collaborative information seeking and retrieval (Jonathan Foster) and with workplace studies of technological change (by Angela Cora Garcia and co‐authors).

Two of the three chapters in the final, “theoretical perspectives”, section are particularly deeply and clearly argued. Alistair Black gives an account of “information history”, setting out “a tentative agenda for a new field”. Although studies in the history of the library/information sciences are by no means new – and this was one of the topics which Cronin asserts would not have seemed out of place in the first ARIST – Black makes a persuasive case for a new, and academically valid, approach. Don Fallis deals with social epistemology, seeing it as the area of philosophy most central to information science. In presenting his detailed and interesting case, he notes the recent interest in the philosophical bases of the information sciences, and cites several of the collections of papers and special issues of journals which make the point. (Sadly, the special issue of Journal of Documentation devoted to this issue – volume 61 number 1 – appeared too recently to be included.) Finally, Uta Priss gives a relatively brief account of formal concept analysis.

This volume, even by the standards of ARIST, is particularly wide in scope, and deep in analysis. It is difficult to imagine that anyone who researches or teaches the information sciences would not find something of value in here. Its value to the practitioner is somewhat less evident on the surface, and I fear that few practitioners will make the effort to find out differently. As with the volumes reviewed by Buckland, virtually all of the authors here are academics, by contrast with the early days of ARIST. Perhaps this is an inevitable consequence of the way the world is, but it is still to be regretted.

Any reviewer of ARIST must echo Buckland's commendation of the editorial team, contributors and publisher for continuing to produce such a valuable resource. If there is to be a quibble, it is perhaps to the concern that regular and high‐quality reviewing of the literature of the information sciences is, in effect, a monopoly, though no doubt a benevolent one.