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The Library and Information Science Portal

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Introduction

Library science and information science are two closely-related and often intersecting disciplines that deal primarily with the organization and retrieval of information.

Library science is an interdisciplinary social science incorporating the humanities, law and applied science and studying topics related to libraries; the collection, organization and dissemination of information resources; and the political economy of information. Library science has also historically included archival science, although a conceptual distinction between libraries and archives has evolved over time.

Amongst the varied topics of study that fall within library science: how information resources are organized to serve the needs of select user groups; how people interact with classification systems and technology; how information is acquired, evaluated and applied by people in and outside of libraries as well as cross-culturally; how people are trained and educated for careers in libraries; the ethics that guide library service and organization; the legal status of libraries and information resources, and the applied science of computer technology used in documentation and records management. Library science is constantly evolving, incorporating new topics like database management, information architecture and knowledge management.

Information science (also referred to as information studies) is an interdisciplinary science primarily concerned with the collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information. Information science studies the application and usage of knowledge in organizations, and the interaction between people, organizations and information systems. It is often, though not exclusively, studied as a branch of computer science or informatics and is closely related to the cognitive and social sciences.

...More about library science More about information science...
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Selected article

Inscription regarding Tiberius Claudius Balbilus of Rome (d. 56 CE) which confirms that the Library of Alexandria must have existed in some form in the first century AD.
The Royal Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was once the largest library in the world. It is generally thought to have been founded at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, during the reign of Ptolemy II of Egypt. It was likely created after his father had built what would become the first part of the Library complex, the temple of the Muses — the Museion, Greek Μουσείον (from which the modern English word museum is derived).

It has been reasonably established that the Library, or parts of the collection, were destroyed by fire on a number of occasions (library fires were common and replacement of handwritten manuscripts was very difficult, expensive and time-consuming). To this day, the details of the destruction (or destructions) remain a lively source of controversy. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was inaugurated in 2003 near the site of the old Library.

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Selected quote

The closest we will ever come to an orderly universe is a good library.
Ashleigh Brilliant, unknown
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Selected biography

Sanford Berman (b. October 6, 1933) is an outspoken, radical librarian (cataloger) known for promoting alternative viewpoints in librarianship and acting as a pro-active information conduit to other librarians around the world, mostly via public speaking, voluminous correspondence, and unsolicited "care packages" delivered via the U.S. Postal Service. Will Manley, columnist for the American Library Association publication American Libraries, referred to Berman as a 'bibliographic warrior.'

The spark of Berman's cataloging revolution was the inclusion in Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) of the term kaffir, which he came across while working in Zambia : "Berman was told by offended black fellow-workers that calling someone a kafir was similar to being called a nigger in America."

This motivated him to systematically address subject heading bias in his work at Hennepin County Library and in writing "Prejudices and Antipathies: A Tract on the LC Subject Heads Concerning People."

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In the news

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Selected picture

Example of the relations in Medical Subject Headings
Image credit: Nichtich
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is a huge controlled vocabulary (or metadata system) for the purpose of indexing journal articles and books in the life sciences. This image shows how the subject heading for 'Stomach Neoplasms' is hierarchically subordinate to other higher-level subject headings.
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Did you know...

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Topics in library and information science

General Structure Storage/ retrieval Society


Institutions Scientometrics Informatics Preservation




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