Information specialist

The term "information specialist" is often specified, for example as  or "business information specialist", "chemical information specialist" or "health information specialist".

Hjørland (2002) defined the special competency of information specialists is related to the concept domain analysis. Information science grew out of special librarianship and documentation and implicit in its tradition has been a focus on subject knowledge. Eleven specific approaches to domain analysis define together the specific competencies of information specialists:

(1) Producing and evaluating literature guides and subject gateways,

(2) Producing and evaluating special classifications and thesauri,

(3) Research on and competencies in indexing and retrieving information in specialties,

(4) Knowledge about empirical user studies in subject areas,

(5) Producing and interpreting bibliometric studies,

(6) Historical studies of information structures and services in domains,

(7) Studies of documents and genres in knowledge domains,

(8) Epistemological and critical studies of different paradigms, assumptions and interests

    in domains.

(9) Knowledge about terminological studies, LSP (languages for special purposes)

    and discourse analysis in knowledge fields,

(10) Knowledge about and studies of structures and institutions in scientific

    and professional communication in a domain.

(11) Knowledge about methods and results from domain analytic studies about

    professional cognition, knowledge representation in computer science and artificial intelligence.

Literature:

Barreau, D. (2005). Integration of information professionals in the newsroom: Two organizational models for research services. Library and Information Science Research, 27(3), 325-345.

Hallmark, J. (2001). Information-seeking behavior of academic meteorologists and the role of information specialists. Science & Technology Libraries, 21(1-2), 53-64.
 

Hjørland, B. (2002a). Hvad er informationsspecialistens særlige ekspertise? DF-Revy, 25(5), 115-116.

Hjørland, B. (2002b). The special competency of information specialists. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(14), 1275-1276.

Neway, J. M. (1985). Information Specialist as Team Player in the Research Process. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.  (New Directions in Librarianship, Number 9).

White, H. D.; M. J. Bates, M. J. & Wilson, P. (1992). For information specialists: Interpretations of reference and bibliographic work. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Willard, A. M. & Morrison, P. (1988). The dynamic role of the information specialist: Two perspectives. Special Libraries, 79(4), 271-276.
 

See also: Information scientist;  Professional aspects of LIS"

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 31-03-2006

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