Concept and expression of time: cultural variations and impact on knowledge organization: Part 5: Expressions of Time in Information Science (IS)*

This paper begins with the scope of natural information and encoded information. Natural information is the pattern of organization of matter and energy in the material world and gets represented through the process of encoding and embedding. The encoded information is based on patterns of organization derived from the use of symbols, language, and signals of our social and perceptual world, Embedded information is the corporeal manifestation of previously encoded information. Information appears as the external manifestation of knowledge named ‘explicit’ or embodied knowledge. Hence, the study of time-space effects on knowledge is relevant to information science. The Information Science abstracts (ISA) of USA defines IS as “an interdisciplinary field concerned with the theoretical and practical concepts as well as the technologies, laws, and industry dealing with knowledge transfer and the sources, generation, organization, representation, processing, distribution, communication and uses of information, and communications among users and their behaviour as they seek to satisfy their information needs”. The dynamic shifts and changes in the emerging knowledge society are taking place in a time/space matrix and has reciprocal relationship with knowledge. The changes over time in the production and quantification of information are discussed. The time-related attributes of time discussed include compressibility and expandability; role of communication in information flow; bibliometrics and informetrics; patterns of growth of information over time, the logistic pattern and exponential pattern; application of Boltzman equation model and heat conduction model to diffusion of information; sociological implications of time-dependent models; and acceleration of pace of information growth in relation to its obsolescence rates. Time in collaborative research and business data growth, statistical pattern in information phenomena such as document life parameters are considered. Sociological and behavioural aspects of research communication are also noted.