Ciência da Informação - Vol 24, número 1, 1995 - Artigos Interdisciplinary nature of information science Tefko Saracevic A natureza interdisciplinar da ciência da informação Resumo Discute a natureza e tendências da ciência da informação nas suas relações interdisciplinares. No início, a origem e antecedentes sociais da ciência da informação apresentam-se seguidos de uma descrição da evolução da recuperação da informação, a atividade principal da ciência da informação. A evolução das relações interdisciplinares é avaliada no que concerne a quatro áreas: biblioteconomia, ciência da computação, ciência cognitiva, inclusive inteligência artificial e comunicação. Nas conclusões, apresentam-se os desafios à ciência da informação prosseguidos de três assuntos críticos: mudanças sociais contemporâneas, a revolução tecnológica e mudanças interdisciplinares. A ciência da informação tem um papel a realizar nestes assuntos. Palavras-chave Biblioteconomia; Ciência da Informação; Ciência da computação; Inteligência artificial; Comunicação; Recuperação da informação. A version of this paper was presented by the author as a keynote address at “Information 2000: An Interdisciplinary Future. A Conference for Students and Professionals in the Information Professions, “University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, 14 & 15 July 1994, under the title: “Interdisciplinary Nature of Information Science: Where it Came From and Where is it Going. “It is incorporated in the Conference Proceedings, pp. 3-8. The cooperation of Conference organizers is gratefully acknowledged. I have taught a number of courses and seminars at the Postgraduate Program in Information Science at the Brazilian Institute for Science and Technology Information (IBICT) and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), as well as at other institutions in Brazil during the 1970’s and 1980’s; I also participated in a number of conferences throughout the country all through the l990’s. The enthusiasm of the students and my colleagues in Brazil left a warm memory, and a belief that inforrnation science has a bright future in Brazil. I especially want to acknowledge them, and also to recognize the contribution that IBICT made to development of information science, and modern information systems, not only in Brazil, but in Latin America as well. INTRODUCTION Of course, it is reasonable to ask: What is information science? This begs another, more fundamental question: How is a subject, any subject, defined to start with? Popper (1972) suggested that: “... we are not students of some subject matter but students of problems. And problems may cut right across the border of any subject matter or discipline.” In this sense information science, as any other field, is defined by the problems it has addressed and by the methods it has chosen to solve them over time. Like any other field information science cannot be understood by lexical definitions or ontology alone. Information science has three general characteristics that are the leit-motifs of its very evolution and existence. These are shared with many modern fields. First, information science is interdisciplinary