“Push a badly built cart with bumpy wheels along amarshy meadow” Or: A Short Tale on the Importance of Information Science

摘要

The poster will present a summary of the arguments andrntopics raised in protest and support letters against thernforthcoming closure of the Department for InformationrnScience at the University of Duesseldorf, Germany. Casernstudy-like this will shed light on how peers andrnstakeholders perceive the role and relevance of informationrnscience in general as well as the contribution of thernDuesseldorf Department in particular. The poster aims,rnhowever, at providing a historical description on the actionsrntaken and the arguments made. It will rather presentrnindicators than significant evidence about perceptions ofrninformation science. The results of the small-scale topicalrnanalyses of the support letters, tweets, and comments to anrnonline petition reveal that typical fields like informationrnretrieval and knowledge management as well as skills likernresearch or assessment of information are seen as assets ofrninformation scientists. However, popularizing the benefitsrnof and - along with it - establishing information science asrnmain subject within the (information) society is still due.