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| Titel / Titel: | Significance and relevance of information science in German-language countries. A panel discussion devoted to the 65th birthday of Wolf Rauch. |
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| Author / Autor | Rauch, W., Kuhlen, R., Stock, W. G., Wolff, C., Womser-Hacker, C., & Schlögl, C.
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| Source / Quelle | M. Gäde, V. Trkulja, & V. Petras (Eds.), Everything Changes, Everything Stays the Same? Understanding Information Science. Proceedings of the 15th International Symposium of Information Science (ISI 2017) (pp. 252-263). Glückstadt, Germany: Hülsbusch.
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| Language / Sprache | English / Englisch |
Significance and relevance of information science in German-language countries. A panel discussion devoted to the 65th birthday of Wolf Rauch.
30 years ago, in his inaugural address on the occasion of the foundation of the Institute of Information Science at the University of Graz, Wolf Rauch talked about significance and research topics of information science. Two key statements, among others, were:
• Information science is at least as important as computer science (p. 6).
• In the U.S. and in England information science is a small but well established discipline. This is in contrast to German-language countries, where it was much difficult for information science to gain ground (p. 14 f.).
While the first statement was probably a little bit provocative, the second one based on a realistic assessment of the status of academic information science at that time.
On the occasion of the 65th birthday of Wolf Rauch, the panel aims at performing a critical review of the actual situation of information science. In particular, the following questions will be discussed in more detail:
1. How is the actual role of information science in German-language countries?
2. What are possible reasons for the changed role of information science today? Did the research topics of information science considerably change in last decades? Are there still research topics which can be primarily attributed to information science nowadays?
3. What can information science in German-language countries do to increase its role in the future?
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