Purpose – The paper seeks to introduce a special issue of Aslib Proceedings , which contains a series of papers written by staff and research students at the Department of Information Science, City University London. Design/methodology/approach – This introductory paper introduces the other...

Purpose – The paper seeks to outline an approach to a unified framework for understanding the concept of “information” in the physical, biological and human domains, and to see what links and interactions may be found between them. It also aims to re‐examine the information science...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergent field of information history (IH) and to move towards a definition of IH. Some of the more traditional historical approaches to information science are challenged in their claims to be information history....

Purpose – The paper aims to describe a network of training centres (TCN‐LIS) to support continuing professional development (CPD) of library and information specialists in countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, funded by the Open Society Institute (OSI). It also aims to...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the current situation of academic LIS research, specifically in the UK and to provide some thoughts considering the future of the discipline. According to the opinion of the authors, this situation is characterised by a lack of cohesion, the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review Wilson's (1981) seminal article, “On user studies and information needs” ( Journal of Documentation , 1981, Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 3‐15) as part of a series celebrating the Journal's 60th anniversary. Design/methodology/approach – This paper...