WERSIG, G.; WINDEL, G. Information Science needs a theory of “Information Action”. Social Science Information Studies, v.5, p.11-23, p.1985.

INTRODUCTION
Information science, seen as an academic discipline and not as a more or less irrelevant appendix to traditional information practice, currently seems to be undergoing change. Certain trends can be noted, at least in the UK and West Germany. Generally, information science is forming itself into some sort of a social science at the interface between such technical disciplines as cybernetics, computer science, telecommunications, technologically based subjects like mass communications, social sciences like sociology, and humanities like psychology .

Having not yet built a coherent corpus of ideas, models or theories or analytic-methodological tools, or a scholarly tradition, information science is still looking for its ‘true destination’. This becomes obvious if we look at the published literature: there is no widely accepted ‘handbook of information science’; the number of articles asking what’ information science’ should be is by no means decreasing; the terminological confusions among terms such as ‘information’, ‘library’, ‘computer’, ’science’ and ’studies’ continue.

Numerous journals try to become established with competing views of the field or subsections of the field. This seems to be one reason why ‘information science’ is still wide open to influences coming from the environment, whether from societal developments in general or from the academic world.

Some developments, which seem to put pressure on information science at present are as follows:
1. The ‘theory discussion’ in the social sciences and mass communications.
2. New developments in the technological field (e.g., information technology).
3. The general criticism of a science-based culture (note, for example, the discussions on atomic energy and pollution) and its implications for a ‘new science’ .
4. Certain failures and shortcomings in information practice.
5. New trends in artificial intelligence.

Though far from being exhaustive, this agenda can give us a relatively clear picture of the problems and fields which information science has to tackle in the years to come. There can be no doubt that by doing this it has to draw its analytical and methodological tools, its models, concepts and theories from the variety of disciplines, shaping them in a new way.

In the search for a theoretical basis for information science, Roberts (1982) has made some proposals which are worth comment. One can agree with Roberts’ harsh criticism of the shortcomings and deficiencies of empirical research in information science, especially in user studies. The implicit assumptions of these studies that ‘information behaviour is rationally motivated and organized’ (Roberts, 1982: 97) and remains relatively stable in time arc, indeed, an analogy to economic man of the classical period. The transfer of the non-empirical concept of ‘economic man’ to information behaviour would not remove the faults of the former approach, especially the lack of empirical validity. The ideal type of approach is a normative one and, therefore, necessarily conflicts with the author’s plea for empirical research; the normative approach is very weak in taking into account the subjective and non-rational aspects of information behaviour. In following Roberts’ support of qualitative research to uncover, analyse and understand the facts of everyday life, the normative approach in particular would not be sufficient. That the empirically supported theoretical basis of information science, as far as users are concerned, is extremely poor, has been stated by numerous authors, of which Roberts is only one (for reviews see Windel, 1980; Pia gem an et af., 1981). It is thus interesting to consider proposals to change this unsatisfactory state of the art.

To be brief: Roberts’ suggestions all point in one direction: the building of a model of information man analogous to the concept of economic man developed by modern economics. This model is seen by Roberts to rest on some generalized assumptions about the information-oriented behaviour of human beings which conforms with information realities. The purpose of this complex model of information man, then, is to serve as a useful device in empirical research.

Contrary to the unrealistic and primitive model of information man employed in numerous user studies and bibliometrics, Roberts’ infonnation man is a complex and differentiated animal guided by rational and nonrational motives and behaviour. But what do these motives and behaviour look like? What are the structural and empirical elements of information man?

Roberts fails to give the reader even the slightest hint of an answer to these questions. Instead he claims that ‘ultimately, all information activity is reducible to individual motivations and actions’ (Roberts, 1982: 98) and that, therefore, the central unit of study has to be the individual. From that we may be justified in concluding that information man is primarily a psychological construct.

But what about all those social, economic and cultural factors, which influence ongoing information processes? What about intervening variables like status, prestige and group dynamics? It seems to us that the model of information man which rests primarily on psychological grounds is too onesided to give a full picture of what information behaviour really is; that is, in Roberts’ words ‘the complex, “interactive process that is summarized by the label” information behaviour’ (Roberts, 1982: 96). If this holds true then information man, as depicted by Roberts, can only be one tool of analysis and has to be supported by others.

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