David Bawden

Review for Catholic Library World by Reviewer: Michael F. Bemis, Freelance Reference Book Reviewer, St. Paul, Minn.

Alert readers will take note that the subject matter of this work is information science, as opposed to library science. The authors go to some lengths in order to draw this distinction in Chapter 1, “What is Information Science? Disciplines and Professions.” While acknowledging that this “field of study” (p. 4), due to its multidisciplinary nature, does not lend itself to tidy definitions, Bawden and Robinson nevertheless convey the scope of a cohesive body of knowledge. In 15 chapters, they clearly and concisely touch on such topics as historical background, the relationship between information and knowledge, domain analysis, informetrics and the philosophical underpinnings of these and still other matters.
As the title indicates, this is not meant to be a treatise, but an overview. The authors leverage the work of other practitioners, not only to advance their own arguments, but to condense their narrative considerably. A typical comment is “For a history of printing, see Twyman (1998)” (p. 27). Indeed, a distinguishing feature of this compact volume is the unusually extensive lists of references, which average 70 entries apiece, at the conclusion of each chapter. The most important of these have been culled and placed in a mini-bibliography, often with one-line annotations appended, in a section headed “Key Readings” (yes, information overload has been given its due within these pages). Other helpful features are epigraphs prefacing each chapter to provide context, subheadings that break the discussion into manageable units, text boxes containing other pertinent material, chapter summaries and, for those prone to skimming rather than reading, a summary-of-the-summary, which is a boxed, bulleted list of main points.
Overall, Bawden and Robinson have done a commendable job in achieving their stated goal “…to describe in outline, and to set into context, all the important topics within the information science discipline” (Preface, p. xiii). Quite an interesting and useful read for its intended audience of LIS students, current professionals will also find this work a great refresher. This book would be most appropriate for academic libraries, especially those that support LIS curricula, and is therefore highly recommended for purchase by those institutions.… (más)