Identifying Key Contributions to Information Science.

Several alternative aproaches were examined to determine how one might identify the key contributions to "information science." The advice of experts provides some assistance, provided one is prepared to cope with their differing value systems. Reliance on current textbooks can also be helpful, provided it is recognized that they show very considerable variation in point of view, subject coverage and -- apparently -- in the selection of references. For example, of 911 distinct references contained in the six current texts that were analyzed, only 14% of them appeared in more than one of the books. The unclear selective patterns in current bibliographies in the information science field also presented problems. The present attempt to identify key contributions suggests that we are far from common agreement on the conceptual, methodological, or practical contributions to the information science field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]