Systems transfer or transform materials, energy or information - and usually all three. An information system is one whose prime function is to trans… - Brian Campbell Vickery

Information practice... consists of two activities that we may call diagnosis and prevention. Diagnosis is identifying what is the most probable information need of a user in a particular state of information want. Provision is deciding what action is most likely to meet that need. Information science seeks to understand the potential range of user situations giving rise to information want and needs; to develop methods of identifying the actual information needed; to understand and expand the range of possible ways of satisfying information need; and to develop methods of deciding what way is most likely to be effective in a particular case.

Mass communications analysts concentrate on “who sends what information, for what purposes, through what channels, to which people, with what effect”. The information profession is more interested in “who seeks what information, for what purposes, through what channels, from which people and sources, with what success”.

All the elements of the process of “becoming informed”... are of interest to investigators other than “information scientists”… The totality of activity related to information today is necessarily a multidisciplinary exercise.