Page 107 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.47, 2021

106 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.13, 2021

During its development history, information science in China is not concentrated in a certain
discipline field, but consciously or unconsciously transplanted the theories or methods of other
disciplines to carry out intelligence research and then spontaneously creates the characteristics
and methods of its own [47] . It is no longer in line with the requirements of scientific and social
development to study information in a single subject area. As a highly comprehensive discipline,
the use of inter-disciplinary and inter-professional systematic scientific research methods to
study and find contradictions and rules could promote the consolidation of the discipline and its
prosperity. Otherwise, it would limit its development and even lead to a decline of the discipline.
So, the research methods of information science that intersect with data science, management,
psychology, and mathematics, have diversified characteristics and continue to present a
multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary trend. In addition, the use of various research methods in
intelligence research also has the characteristics of “integration”, that is, the systematization of
methods and the synthesis of research.
In order to understand the development history of information science and its position in the
social science system, it is very important to sort out and analyze the internal connection and
the system of information science research methods, which are also a big focus in the field. The
methodology of information science with Chinese characteristics starts from the “classical social
science level theory”. In 1985, WANG Chongde put forward a three-level theory for the research
methods, including philosophical methods, general methods and special methods, which had
attracted widespread attention of the Chinese information science research community. In the
following forty years, scholars not only successively put forward the process theory, function
[48]
theory, dichotomy theory, object theory and era theory , but also compiled works such as Library
and Information Science Methodology and Information Science Research Methodology. At present,
the three-level theory is still widely accepted. The philosophical methods are the basis for the
development of the theory of information science. They are usually the methods to explore the
rationality of the evolution and change of intelligence theory, to guide the strategic direction of
information science research from the ideological level, which include structuralism, scientific
paradigms, materialist dialectics, etc. The outstanding feature of the general method is the synthesis
of multidisciplinary methods, including the old and new three methodologies, transplantation
method, cross-sectional scientific method, etc. The special methods are methods with the
characteristics of information science, with unique scientific research method formed under the
guidance of the thinking mode of the discipline, which are irreplaceable and may reflect the value
of information science theory, such as citation analysis, blank spot analysis, network log analysis,
[49]
knowledge gene methods, etc. In fact, due to the complexity of intelligence research objects and
the diversity of its methods, the methodological system is difficult to define with a set of standards.
Therefore, various methodological classification systems constructed by multiple thinking and
different levels have appeared in China’s information research community, and gradually formed
[50]
a situation in which multiple models coexist . The three research norms of information science