Information history
Information history may refer to the history of each of the categories listed below (or to combinations of them). It should be recognized that the understanding of, for example, libraries as information systems only goes back to about 1950. The application of the term "information" for earlier systems or societies is a retronym. The word and concept "information". The Latin roots and Greek origins of the word "information" is presented by Capurro & Hjørland (2003). References on "formation or molding of the mind or character, training, instruction, teaching" date from the 14th century in both English (according to Oxford  English Dictionary) and other European languages. In the transition from Middle Ages to Modernity the use of the concept of information reflected a fundamental turn in epistemological basis – from "giving a (substantial) form to matter" to "communicating something to someone". Peters (1988, pp. 12–13) concludes: In the modern era, the most important influence on the concept of information is derived from the Information theory developed by Claude Shannon and others. This theory, however, reflects a fundamental contradiction. Northrup (1993) wrote: In their seminal book "The Study of Information: Interdisciplinary Messages", Almach and Mansfield (1983) collected key views on the interdisciplinary  controversy in computer science, artificial intelligence, library and information science, linguistics, psychology, and physics, as well as in the social sciences. Almach (1983, p. 660) himself disagrees with the use of the concept of information in the context of signal transmission, the basic senses of information in his view all referring "to telling something or to the something that is being told. Information is addressed to human minds and is received by human minds." All other senses, including its use with regard to nonhuman organisms as well to society as a whole, are, according to Machlup, metaphoric and, as in  the case of cybernetics, anthropomorphic. Hjørland (2007) describes the fundamental difference between objective and subjective views of information and argues that the subjective view has been supported by, among others, Bate son, Yovits, Span-Hansen, Brier, Buck land, Goguen, and Hjørland. Hjørland provided the following example: Academic discipline. Information history is an emerging discipline related to, but broader than, library history. An important introduction and review was made by Alistair Black (2006). A prolific scholar in this field is also Toni Weller, for example, Weller (2007, 2008, 2010a and 2010b). As part of her work Toni Weller has argued that  there are important links between the modern information age and its historical precedents. A description from Russia is Volodin (2000). Alistair Black (2006, p. 445) wrote: "This chapter explores issues of discipline definition and legitimacy by segmenting information history into its various components: "Bodies influential in the field include the American Library Association’s Round Table on Library History, the Library History Section of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), and, in the U.K., the Library and Information History Group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). Each of these bodies has been busy  in recent years, running conferences and seminars, and initiating scholarly projects. Active library history groups function in many other countries, including Germany (The Wolfenbuttel Round Table on Library History, the History of the Book and the History of Media, located at the Herzog August Bibliothek), Denmark (The Danish Society for Library History, located at the Royal School of Library and Information Science), Finland (The Library History Research Group, University of Tamepere), and Norway (The Norwegian Society for Book and Library History). Sweden has no official group dedicated to the subject, but interest is generated by the existence of a museum  of librarianship in Bods, established by the Library Museum Society and directed by Magnus Torstensson. Activity in Argentina, where, as in Europe and the U.S., a "new library history" has developed, is described by Parada (2004)." (Black (2006, p. 447). Information technology (IT). The term IT is ambiguous although mostly synonym with computer technology. Haigh (2011, pp. 432-433) wrote Some people use the term "information technology" about technologies used before the development of the computer. This is however to use the term as a retronym. Information society. "It is said that we live in an "Age of Information," but  it is an open scandal that there is no theory, nor even definition, of information that is both broad and precise enough to make such an assertion meaningful." (Goguen, 1997). The Danish Internet researcher Niels Ole Finnemann (2001) developed a general history of media. He wrote: "A society cannot exist in which the production and exchange of information are of only minor significance. For this reason one cannot compare industrial societies to information societies in any consistent way. Industrial societies are necessarily also information societies, and information societies may also be industrial societies." He suggested the following media  matrix: Information science. Many information science historians cite Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine as the fathers of information science with the founding of the International Institute of Bibliography (IIB) in 1895 Institutionally, information science emerged in the last part of the 19th century as documentation science which in general shifted name to information science in the 1960s. Heting Chu (2010) classified the history and development of information representation and retrieval (IRR) in four phases. "The history of IRR is not long. A retrospective look at the field identifies increased demand, rapid growth, the demystification phase, and the networked era  as the four major stages IRR has experienced in its development:"