The science and the new condition of the knowledge: the contribution of the information science

Abstract

Face to the new knowledge status, basically consisting of dispersonalization, credibility and fragmentation, decurring from the immense increase of information and knowlege currently existing, Information Science, having information as study object, contributes to scientific knowledge production. It aims at researching and developing processes, techniques, taking over information technologies and cognition and knowledge techniques for information to produce its effects: seeking for granting aprehension of sense or change in conscience status in meaning, i.e., the knowledge. Thus, science social character turns out concrete. By reflecting about Information Science fundaments, we intend to show that construction, communication and use operations which take place over its object of study materialize in information retrieval systems. In practice, such systems consist of corresponding a representation of the researcher’s necessity, or of a scientific community, with a document content representation, by means of a comparison function which assesses document pertinence and relevance, so that the information recovered may represent scientific state-of-the-art on a determined knowledge field.