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Bawden, D. and Robinson, L. Introduction to Information Science London: Facet, 2012. 351pp. ISBN 978-1-85604-810-1. £49.95
David and Lyn's preface to this book identifies their aim as being 'to describe in outline, and to set into context, all of the important topics within the information science discipline'. Despite the breadth and inclusivity of this statement, they make a pretty good job of achieving their aim. The book consists of fifteen chapters, starting with an introductory 'What is information science?' and a wide-ranging if very potted summary of the 'History of information: the story of documents' (from prehistory to the twentieth century in barely ten pages!), progressing through a range of fairly predictable classic information science (IS) topic areas (including information organization; information creation, dissemination and retrieval; information behaviour; information society; information communication; information policy; and informetrics) and concluding with material on digital literacy, IS research, and a 'future of the information sciences' chapter in which a positive (if slightly mutedly so) view of prospects for the discipline is put forward. There are also useful lists of figures and acronyms, a brief 'Additional resources' list (which interestingly, and in my view not inappropriately, focuses on textbooks and major journals), a useful eleven-page index, and no fewer than six...