Information science

Information science (or information studies) is an interdisciplinary field primarily concerned with the analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, and dissemination of information.Practitioners within the field study the application and usage of knowledge in organizations, along with the interaction between people, organizations and any existing information systems, with the aim of creating, replacing, improving, or understanding information systems. Information science is often (mistakenly) considered a branch of computer science. However, it is actually a broad, interdisciplinary field, incorporating not only aspects of computer science, but often diverse fields such as archival science, cognitive science, commerce, communications, law, library science, museology, management, mathematics, philosophy, public policy, and the social sciences.
Information science should not be confused with information theory or library science. Information theory is the study of a particular mathematical concept of information, while library science is a field related to libraries which uses some of the principles of information science.
Scope and approach 
Information science focuses on understanding problems from the perspective of the stakeholders involved and then applying information and other technologies as needed. In other words, it tackles systemic problems first rather than individual pieces of technology within that system. In this respect, information science can be seen as a response to technological determinism, the belief that technology "develops by its own laws, that it realizes its own potential, limited only by the material resources available and the creativity of its developers. It must therefore be regarded as an autonomous system controlling and ultimately permeating all other subsystems of society."[2]
Many universities have entire colleges, departments or schools devoted to the study of information science, while numerous information science scholars can be found in disciplines such as communication, computer science, law, library science, and sociology. Several institutions have formed an I-School Caucus (see List of I-Schools), but there are numerous others besides these with comprehensive information foci.
Within information science, attention has been given in recent years to human–computer interaction, groupware, the semantic web, value sensitive design, iterative design processes and to the ways people generate, use and find information.
Definitions of information science
An early definition of Information science (going back to 1968, the year when American Documentation Institute shifted name to American Society for Information Science and Technology) is:
“Information science is that discipline that investigates the properties and behavior of information, the forces governing the flow of information, and the means of processing information for optimum accessibility and usability. It is concerned with that body of knowledge relating to the origination, collection, organization, storage, retrieval, interpretation, transmission, transformation, and utilization of information. This includes the investigation of information representations in both natural and artificial systems, the use of codes for efficient message transmission, and the study of information processing devices and techniques such as computers and their programming systems. It is an interdisciplinary science derived from and related to such fields as mathematics, logic, linguistics, psychology, computer technology, operations research, the graphic arts, communications, library science, management, and other similar fields. It has both a pure science component, which inquires into the subject without regard to its application, and an applied science component, which develops services and products” (Borko, 1968, p.3).
Some authors use informatics as a synonym for information science. This is especially true when related to the concept developed by A. I. Mikhailov and other Soviet authors in the mid sixties, which suggested that informatics is a discipline related to the study of Scientific Information. Informatics is difficult to precisely define because of the rapidly evolving and interdisciplinary nature of the field.
Regional differences and international terminology complicate the problem. Some people note that much of what is called "Informatics" today was once called "Information Science" at least in fields such as Medical Informatics. For example, when library scientists began also to use the phrase "Information Science" to refer to their work, the term informatics emerged:
in the United States as a response by computer scientists to distinguish their work from that of library science, and
in Britain as a term for a science of information that studies natural, as well as artificial or engineered, information-processing systems.
Another term that is debated to a be a synonym for "information studies" is "information systems". Brian Campbell Vickery's Information Systems (1973) places information systems within IS. Ellis, Allen, & Wilson (1999) is, on the other hand a bibliometric investigation describing the relation between two different fields: "Information science" and "information systems".