Page 92 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.47, 2021

AN Lu, CHEN Miaomiao, SHEN Yan & LI Gang / The basic categories and core propositions of information science with Chinese characteristics 091

knowledge services. It is also necessary to provide services such as knowledge fusion, integrated
extraction and analysis of knowledge units in depth and services such as forecasting dynamic
[6]
monitoring to support national strategy, economic development and social needs in breadth .
New mixed requirements of knowledge-based, social oriented and facts-based information
services, point out the service direction for intelligence popularization and intelligent intelligence
decision-making. The key to distinguishing information science from other disciplines is its
theories and methods, including both basic theories and methodological theories. The basic theories
refer to local information system, information concept and information discipline theories, which
developed after studying, fusing and absorbing foreign theories and interdisciplinary contents such
as the theory of three worlds and the intelligence idea of attribute structure, and Mikhailov’s theory
of scientific communication. The methodological theories are the methodological thoughts that
guide the development of intelligence research and are scientific methods for understanding and
using information.
According to the division system of the current literature [7-8] and the understanding of the
history and development of the discipline, this paper proposes four basic categories of information
science with Chinese characteristics: information organization and retrieval, intelligence research,
information service, and information science theories and methods. Meanwhile, it also summarizes
sixteen related core propositions according to the research achievements of scholars.

1.1 Information organization and retrieval

From the perspective of its development history, the primary task of information science in China
is to solve the problem of intelligence “retrieval”, which is the retrieval process of matching user
needs with information/intelligence through effectively organization of facts, data, information,
knowledge and intelligence.
Information organization and information retrieval are inseparable. Information organization
is the orderly organization of information. Information retrieval is about helping users discover
information. According to the objects of information organization, it has gone through three stages:
documents organization, information organization, and knowledge organization. In the stage of
documents organization, we mainly organized, managed and retrieved scientific and technological
literature, and established a characteristic organization method of various literature classification
and indexing suitable for China’s national conditions, named Chinese Library Classification (1975).
With the deepening of reform and opening-up, and the development of information technology,
the method of information production had changed, from document workshop to information
analysis and utilization, focusing on information analysis. It promoted fundamental changes in the
carrier, form and content of information organization, realized the change of organizing objects
from documents to information contents. At the same time, in order to adapt to the development
of electronic resource storage and retrieval, China compiled the first comprehensive Chinese