Reviews the literature of the information chain, analogous to ecology’s food chain, taking the Royal Society Scientific Information Conference, 1948, as the seminal point. Describes eight successive models of the information chain each incorporating contemporary thoughts and experiences. Each model is labelled with the year to which it may be said to refer: Distribution of Scientific Information 1948; Document Network 1967; Dissemination of Scientific and Technical Information 1978; Structure of Scientific Literature 1979; Ecosystem of Scientific Communication 1980; Information Chain 1988; Information Chain 1989; Pathways of Information Flow 1993. Although of wide applicability, the focus of interest for information scientists tends to be the communication of learned information.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Aitchsion, T.M. (1988) The database producer in the information chain . Journal of Information Science, 14, (6), 319-327
2.
Bernal, J.D. (1939) The social function of science. London: George Routledge
3.
Bernal, J.D. (1948) Provisional scheme for central distribution of scientific publications . In: The Royal Society Scientific Information Conference, 21 June - 2 July 1948: report and papers submitted. London: The Royal Society, 253-258
4.
Eisenhart, Douglas, M. (1994) Publishing in the information age: a new management framework for the digital era. Westport, CT; London: Quorum Books
5.
Goffman, William and Warren, Kenneth S. (1980) Scientific information systems and the principle of selectivity. New York, NY: Praeger Scientific
6.
Horowitz, Irving L. (1986) Communicating ideas: the crisis of publishing in a post-industrial society. Oxford: Oxford University Press
7.
Institute of Information Scientists (1988) Criteria for courses in information science and for corporate membership of the Institute of Information Scientists. London: IIS
8.
Judge, P.J. (1967) The user-system interface today: national and international information systems. In: Anthony De Reuck and Julie Knight (eds) Communication in science: Documentation and Automation ( London: J.&A. Churchill ),37-51
9.
Judge, P.J. (1996) ‘The contemporary information chain’, personal communication to the author, dated 6 June 1996
10.
Lancaster, F.W. (1978) Toward paperless information systems. New York, NY: Academic Press
11.
Lilley, Dorothy B. and Trice, Ronald W. (1989) A history of information science 1945-1985. San Diego, CA: Academic Press
12.
Meadows, A.J. (ed.) (1991) Knowledge and communication: essays on the information chain. London: Library Association Publishing
13.
Owen, J.S. Mackenzie and van Halm, J. (1989) Innovation in the information chain: the effects of technological development on the provision of scientific and technical information. London: Routledge
14.
Pfaffenberger, Bryan (1990) Democratizing information: online databases and the rise of end-user searching. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall & Co.
15.
Rodere Nancy K. and King, Donald W. (1982) Information dissemination and technology transfer in telecommunications. Rockville, MD: King Research; Washington, DC: Congress of the US, Office of Technology Assessment
16.
Royal Society (1993) The scientific, technical and medical information system in the United Kingdom. London: The Royal Society
17.
Subramanyam, K. (1979) Scientific literature. In: Allen Kent , Harold Lancour , and Jay E. Daily (eds) Encyclopedia of library and information science, vol.26. New York: Marcel Dekker , 376-548
18.
Urquhart, D.J. (1948) The organization of the distribution of scientific and technical information. In: The Royal Society Scientific Information Conference, 21 June - 2 July 1948: report and papers submitted. London: The Royal Society , 524-527
