Information Science

[Redfire]

Does anyone know anything about the field?

It seems interesting. I know some librarians and archivists; but from what I've read information science enables you to do other things as well. Even research. At any rate; I doubt it has less work than the other major I'm planning to do, which is linguistics.

 

[Cognisant]

Mathematics, theoretical physics, philosophy and computer science all have a consensus on most things but each perspective has its own little quirks.

Going from the foundation up, certain things (such that information itself can be neither be created or destroyed) are assumed but as is their nature philosophers will challange these assumptions, now a philosopher who starts spouting alternate theories is a theoretical physicist, a theoretical physicist who turns these theories into something useful is a mathematician and a mathmatican who actually does something useful is usually a computer scientist or at least some kind of engineer (includes programmers).

So what about information theory are you interested in?

 

[Redfire]

Information theory seems fascinating, but that is not what I meant.

This is what I'm talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_science

 

[Laburnum]

(First time post, long time lurk. Yay information science)

IS deals with the intersection of technology, information and people. Interdisciplinary and very broad -- big topics are 1) structure, like principles of organization, classification and categorization; 2) systems, like how library databases, search engines and the Internet work; and 3) a social dimension, which deals with subjects like human-computer interaction as well as information ethics and policies (search engine bias, NSA, etc). Also heard that individual iSchools are likely to have either a social or mathematical/technical slant, so you might want to look up the program you're interested in.

The academic writing is very jargon-heavy and makes very fine and precise conceptual distinctions (the wikipedia article seems about par for the course).

(IS and linguistics seem kind of similar in approach -- I'm not sure how to articulate the intersection but both are strongly connected to cognitive science, for what that's worth.)

Source: college infosci101


ETA: As for prospects, there's a short list here - there are a lot more resources out there and do check with career services at your college. Library and archive work is definitely not the only career path available (though certainly a valid one).

 

[Redfire]

That is excellent information, thank you!

The field seems really cool. It's hard to believe I never considered it before.

Oh, and welcome to the forum. I mostly lurk too.