Information Studies: Emergent Field, Convergent Curriculum

Librarianship, archives management, and records management have functioned largely as autonomous disciplines. Economic, technological, and higher-education trends, however, mitigate against continued ― possibly self-defeating ― claims to uniqueness. A growing number of observations in the literature about interfield relationships, pressing long-term economic and higher-education realities, and a distinct language shift in the Standards for Accreditation, 1992, toward greater inclusiveness encourage examination of shared conceptual characteristics among the information fields. Areas of convergence include the information life-cycle concept, gatekeeping, information storage and retrieval, information representation, assistive/instructional roles, ethics, and custodial/preservation concerns. Implications for education and research in an emerging unified field of information management or information studies are suggested.