Page 232 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2015 Vol. 41

Extended English abstracts of articles published in the Chinese Edition of Journal of Library Science in China 2015 Vol.41 231

of the research, a new trend is presented at the same time. The purpose of this article is mainly to
clarify the context of IC research abroad, to overview the main content and the research methods
of IC research, to set forth the problems those different levels of IC research concern, to detect
the trend of the research, to summarize the enlightenment from the foreign IC research, and to put
forward interrelated suggestions for research in China.
This article applies the method of literature review, and builds the framework of research from
four parts. At first the history of the rise and development of IC research abroad is conducted
briefly. Then the situation of IC research is described from stage division, subject distribution
and level induction. Thirdly the content of IC research is outlined from concept, constitution and
evaluation. Fourthly the IC research is analyzed and evaluated from the main problems, typical
methods, related concepts and development trends.
The IC research can be divided into three stages: the embryonic stage (from 1970s to the middle
1980s), the preliminary development stage (from the late 1980s to the late 1990s), and the rapid
development stage (from year 2000 until present).
The IC research mainly concentrates on the fields like Information Science and Library Science,
Computer Science and Information Systems, Economics and Business, Management, Education
and Education Research and so on.
In the process of actual research, IC research often incorporates the theories of Culturology,
Sociology, and Information Science, etc. It has gradually developed into three levels, namely
the national level (National Information Culture, NIC), organizational level (Organizational
Information Culture, OIC), and the individual level (Personal Information Culture, PIC). The
theoretical foundation of the NIC and PIC is from Culturology and Sociology, being related to
such factors as quality, ethics and morality. The research theoretical basis of OIC is from the
organizational culture, information management and information science, involving information
use, information behavior, information sharing, information system, information standards,
information regulations and other aspects. But no matter what kind of perspective it is based on,
the IC research must answer questions of “what”, “why” and “how”, namely “the concept of
IC (what)”, “the source of IC (why)”, and “the construction and assessment of IC (how)”.
Therefore, NIC, OIC and PIC research cannot break away from the basic elements such as
information values, attitudes, regulations and standards. They are all subject to the influence of IT
technology, and concerning about the evaluation of IC.
Though the IC research comes from different disciplines and expands from different dimensions,
its research object is also an individual person as well as a person or a staff member in a particular
organization and social environment. Therefore, the IC research also belongs to the category of
behavior research. It mainly includes two methods: the theoretical study and the empirical study.
From the IC research trend abroad in the last two years, we can see that the study of OIC is
still the mainstream, and the study of OIC has expanded from commercial organizations to data
guardianship institutions, police agencies, government agencies and so on.