The Limits of Information Science.

The problem of information science can be analyzed following several steps. First, there is the issue of the angle of analysis, which can be oriented in two directions: (a) to consider information science from the point of view of its boundaries as scientific endeavor (i.e., as a scientific rather than a non-scientific activity); and (b) to focus information science from the perspective of its possible confines in the present context as well as in the future. Second, the limits of information science also depend on its own scientific status. In this regard, this paper characterizes information science as an applied science of design, i.e., as a kind of science of the artificial oriented toward the solution of concrete issues in the sphere of archives, libraries, and centers of documentation. This characterization as applied science of design involves the analysis of limits of the structural and dynamic elements of this science of the artificial, such as aims, processes, and results. Third, besides the endogenous aspects of this problem-solving task in an artificial domain (which are commonly the case of aims, processes, and results), the limits of information science also depend on exogenous features, which are those elements (social, cultural, economic, political, ecological, etc.) that surround this scientific endeavor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]