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Information as Thing
Read the following excerpt from Michael Buckland's article "Information
as Thing" and think about these approached to defining information and how
they help with your reading of Dervin
& Nilan.
- Information-as-process: When someone is informed, what they know is
changed. In this sense "information" is "The act of
informing...; communication of the knowledge or 'news' of some fact or
occurrence; the action of telling or fact of being told of something" (Oxford
English Dictionary, 1989, vol. 7, p. 944).
- Information-as-knowledge: "Information" is also used to
denote that which is perceived in "information-as-process:" the
"knowledge communicated concerning some particular fact, subject, or
event; that of which one is appraised or told; intelligence, news" (Oxford
English Dictionary, 1989, vol. 7, p. 944). The notion of information as
that which reduces uncertainty could be viewed as a special case of
"information-as-knowledge."
- Information-as-thing: The term "information" is also used
attributively for objects, such as data and documents, that are referred to
as "information" because they are regarded as being informative,
as "having the quality of imparting knowledge or communicating
information; instructive." (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989,
vol. 7, p. 946).
Source
Buckland, M. "Information As Thing." Journal of the American
Society for Information Science. 42 (5), 1991, 351-360.