PHENOMENA

We began by enumerating the kinds of low-level phenomena (objects, activities, etc.) which we regard as the proper concern of information science. we would include. constraints The table overleaf is a crudely classified array of the categories of phenomena that Fringe subjects of study include the (eg economic) on the above.

There was disagreement as to the extent to which information science should be concerned with the ends of the dumbbell ... eg with the mental processes involved in writing and in understanding. But we agreed that, although in these areas (and in some depth studies in the central portion) information science might impinge on other disciplines (eg psychology, linguistics), it is not necessary or desirable to put up hard and fast barriers. The study of all these areas does not in itself constitute a science, but would do so if all the areas were related in an explanatorily powerful way to some central concept. We consider that they can all be related to the concept of information (or of informing), even though we did not agree on a definition of this concept, and the necessary pulling together has clearly not yet been done.

STEPHEN ROBERTSON

WHAT KIND OF SCIENCE IS INFORMATION SCIENCE? The question, 'What kind of science should information science be? 1 was split up into several component questions. 1. What kinds of problems, issues, ideas should concern information scientists? For example, if a student submits a proposal for doctoral research or a dissertation to a committee in an information science program or