Since information science concerns the transmission of records, it concerns context. The transmission of documents ensures their arrival in new contexts. Documents and their copies are spread across times and places. The amount of labor required to discover and retrieve relevant documents is also formulated by context. Thus, any serious consideration of communication and of information technologies quickly leads to a concern with context, relevance, and labor.Information scientists have developed many theories of context, relevance, and labor but not a framework for organizing them and describing their relationship with one another. We propose the words context and relevance can be used to articulate a useful framework for considering the diversity of approaches to context and relevance in information science, as well as their relations with each other and with labor.

The interdisciplinary field known as digital humanities (DH) is represented in various forms in the teaching and research practiced in iSchools. Building on the work of an iSchools organization committee charged with exploring digital humanities curricula, we present findings from a series of related studies exploring aspects of DH teaching, education, and research in iSchools, often in collaboration with other units and disciplines. Through a survey of iSchool programs and an online DH course registry, we investigate the various education models for DH training found in iSchools, followed by a detailed look at DH courses and curricula, explored through analysis of course syllabi and course descriptions. We take a brief look at collaborative disciplines with which iSchools cooperate on DH research projects or in offering DH education. Next, we explore DH careers through an analysis of relevant job advertisements. Finally, we offer some observations about the management and administrative challenges and opportunities

In information science, writing, printing, telecommunication, and digital computing have been central concerns because of their ability to distribute information. Overlooked is the obvious fact that these technologies fashion copies, and the theorizing of copies has been neglected. We may think a copy is the same as what it copies, but no two objects can really be the same. "The same" means similar enough as an acceptable substitute for some purpose. The differences between usefully similar things are also often important, in forensic analysis, for example, or inferential processes. Status as a copy is only one form of relationship between objects, but copies are so integral to information science that they demand a theory. Indeed, theorizing copies provides a basis for a more complete and unified view of information science.

PurposeThis paper describes a model for integrating publicly available private information concerning textual heritage on the websites of South Korean antiquarian booksellers into the information management systems of the National Library of South Korea (NLK).Design/methodology/approachA method for formalizing the coproduction of heritage knowledge is presented, using the NLK and textual heritage as a case study.FindingsAn investigation of the systems and services of the NLK, interviews with South Korean antiquarian booksellers and the researchers' ability to design a system (including an application profile) that will facilitate the integration of data curated by antiquarian booksellers into the systems of the NLK suggest that it is possible to formalize the coproduction of heritage knowledge.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this case study is limited to describing the information management procedures of a small number of online South Korean antiquarian booksellers and a single national library, its findings have broad implications. Through discussion of a specific case, the paper identifies a large class of resources that, if acquired, circulated and conserved by public libraries, is likely to enhance the public good provided by public libraries. It also provides an example of how public libraries can better meet their obligations as service and memory institutions by building systems that enable the coproduction of heritage resources by documenting and conserving records related to heritage transactions.Practical implicationsThe paper demonstrates that it is possible to create a formal system for coproducing heritage information.Social implicationsThe ability of public libraries to coproduce heritage information is likely to increase the public good provided by public libraries and to make heritage resources more accessible.Originality/valueThis paper presents a novel model enabling the curation of publicly available private information about antiquarian texts by a national library to aid cultural understanding and the preservation of documents describing historical texts.