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

摘要

The poster will present a summary of the arguments and topics raised in protest and support letters against the forthcoming closure of the Department for Information Science at the University of Duesseldorf, Germany. Case study-like this will shed light on how peers and stakeholders perceive the role and relevance of information science in general as well as the contribution of the Duesseldorf Department in particular. The poster aims, however, at providing a historical description on the actions taken and the arguments made. It will rather present indicators than significant evidence about perceptions of information science. The results of the small-scale topical analyses of the support letters, tweets, and comments to an online petition reveal that typical fields like information retrieval and knowledge management as well as skills like research or assessment of information are seen as assets of information scientists. However, popularizing the benefits of and - along with it - establishing information science as main subject within the (information) society is still due.