Page 235 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.47, 2021

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concepts and methodologies.
This study shows that the philosophical foundation of information experience research,
particularly phenomenology, bestows this category of research a number of distinctive
features: it sees the user as a holistic person, engaging both the body and the mind in his/
her interaction with information; it focuses on users’ lived experience of being informed and
applies hermeneutic approach to examining this experience; it generates results that align with
humanity scholarship, which supports LIS profession not so much through causal relation
based prediction as through experience based empathy. This study also shows that the current
conception of information experience appears to be based primarily on the subjective view of
information and a phenomenological view of experience; this has given rise to a hugely conflated
and nebulous object of study for information experience research. Having examined the features
of information experience research, this study goes on to compare these features with the
established characteristics of information behavior and information practice research and argues
that the difference between these strands of research is so pronounced that they can be seen as
three different paradigms for information user studies. All considered, this paper believes that
information experience research will make a notable impact on future information user studies,
alongside information behavior and information practice research.

Identifying backbone knowledge and effective methods in library and
information science: useful methods as double evidence and model sample
Fred Y. YE 〇a*

Based on Kuhn’s paradigm and Popper’s falsification, backbone knowledge and effective
methods with their functions and applications in library and information science are discussed.
By logical analysis, it is revealed that the paradigm transformation accompanies with the change
of the backbone knowledge while the effective methods may support the paradigm revolution in
a discipline. Via the definitions of backbone knowledge and effective methods, it is judged that
backbone knowledge has clue of characteristic concepts (concept)-academic laws (theory)-core
knowledge (system), and it is suggested to set a hypothesis of backbone knowledge increasing
linearly. In the field of library and information science, the backbone knowledge is clarified as
information organization, information retrieval and information analysis, where concept-theory-
system can be identified. Meanwhile, it is proposed that the method of double-evidence and
the method of model-sample integrated by quantitative analysis and qualitative synthesis are
macroscopically and microscopically effective methods in library and information science. When
the method of double-evidence is characterized by two kinds of evidences from different sources,

* Correspondence should be addressed to Fred Y. YE, Email: yye@ nju. edu. cn, ORCID: 0000-0001-9426-934X.