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Subject: New Articles of Informing Science Journal Available online for free, at http://inform.nu Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 17:28:54 -0800 From: Eli Cohen Eli_Cohen@ACM.ORG To: ISWORLD@LISTSERV.HEANET.IE

Dear IS World Reader,

The Editors of Informing Science: an International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline is pleased to announce that the following articles are available online and soon, in print. The online versions are available to all without cost, of course, since our mission is scientific, not mercantile. The online versions, in Adobe Acrobat PDF format, are available at http://inform.nu.

New Articles for January 2002 (Vol. 5, No. 1)

Toward a Systemic Notion of Information: Practical Consequences, by Nagib Callaos & Belkis Callaos

Web-enabled Information and Referral Services: A Framework for Analysis, by Mary Helen Fagan

Here follows abstracts of these two articles:

Nagib Callaos & Belkis Callaos Universidad Simon Bolivar, Venezuela

Our main purpose in this paper is to start a process of a systemic definition of the notion of information and to provide some initial practical consequences of it. We will try to do that providing: 1) a conceptual definition, following Ackoff’s (1962) description and method of such a kind of definition, and 2) following Peirce’s (1931-5,1958) conception of “meaning”, where the practical consequences should be included. To our knowledge, no attempt has been done up to the present neither to find a Peircean meaning to the notion of information, nor to start a process of describing a systemic notion of information. Consequently, we will try to integrate the different definitions made on information. But to integrate we should first differentiate what is to be integrated. Thus, we will typify information conceptions in subjective and objective, providing brief description and analysis of each type, integrating them in the context of a systemic notion of information, and drawing the respective pragmatic consequences, as required by Peirce, for any meaning description, and by a pragmatic-teleological systemic epistemology (Churchmann, 1971)

Keywords: Information Meaning, Pragmatic Meaning, Systemic Definition, Information Systems, Informing Sciences.

Mary Helen Fagan University of Texas at Tyler, Texas, USA

Information & Referral (I&R) services help people obtain relevant and accurate information to meet specific needs. The provision of traditional I&R services by skilled specialists is being augmented by web-enabled I&R services, raising a number of issues and opportunities. First, this paper analyzes the literature on I&R services in order to understand key issues and common practices in the development of I&R services. Then a framework is presented that explores two key dimensions of I&R services: the communities of interest and communities of place that they serve. This I&R community analysis framework is illustrated with a number of mini-case studies, and conclusions are drawn regarding how it may be applied. The findings of this study should be of interest to many organizations that want to use the web to make information readily accessible to the people they serve.

Keywords: Information & Referral, Community of Place, Community of Interest, Community Networks

All the best,

-eli Eli COHEN Editor-in-Chief, Informing Science Journal

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