信息单元再认识

A Revisit to Units of Information

本研究回顾了图书馆情报学对信息单元进行自觉或不自觉划分的历史,以于良芝最近提出的信息定义为基础,考察了细分信息单元的可能性,提出信息单元至少包括作品、作品章节和作品主题片段三个级别,指出尽管图书馆信息职业活动最经常采用"作品"这一信息单元,但很多活动可以同时采用其他信息单元以改善信息查询和获取效率;随后以于良芝的论文《Back to the fundamentals again》为例,展示了上述三类信息单元的具体事例,以及针对不同单元进行信息组织整理而产生的元数据结果。文章指出,未来可以通过更大范围的实证研究对三级信息单元进行验证,考察不同单元对不同职业活动的适用性和使用效果,对最小信息单元(作品主题片段)的形式进行归纳和分类。

This paper reviews the endeavor of library and information science in search for information units to be used in information organization and retrieval. It then adopts Yu＇s recent defi nition of information as basis and examines the possibility of dividing information into various units. It shows that there exist at least three levels of units for information： work, chapter, thematic section; it argues that although work is the most commonly used unit in nearly all professional activities, it is possible to use other units in at least some of the activities. It then takes Yu＇s Back to the Fundamentals Again paper as an example and demonstrates that these three levels indeed exist and that each level enables a different depth of information organization. This paper contends that future research is needed to test the universality and utility of these three levels of information units through large scale empirical research and to develop a typology of formats（e.g., concept based, fact based, graph based, formula based, etc.） for the lowest level of information unit.