Cybernetics
Scientific discipline founded by the
mathematician Norbert Wiener
(1894-1964), who developed
principles for control, regulation and communication shared by men, animals and
machines (cf., Wiener, 1948).
Concepts such as feedback mechanisms,
redundancy, open and closed systems (cf.,
systems theory), circular causality etc. are
all basic cybernetic terms.
Von Foerster (1979) introduced the concept "the cybernetics of cybernetics" or "second
order cybernetics", which is about cybernetic systems with self-reference. In
Denmark has Søren Brier worked with this concept, also in relation to Library
and Information Science. (E.g., Brier, 1996). He publishes the journal "Cybernetics and Human
Knowing" (1992- ).
Literature:
Brier, S. (1996): “Cybersemiotics: A new interdisciplinary development applied to the problems of knowledge organization and document retrieval in information science”, Journal of Documentation, 52(3),296-344. http://web.archive.org/web/20041111223944/http://www.flec.kvl.dk/sbr/full+text+documents/JDOCART.pdf
Heilprin, L. B. (1974). On access to knowledge in the social sciences and
humanities, from the viewpoint of cybernetics and information science. In:
Access to the literature of the Social Sciences and Humanities: Proceedings of
the Conference on Access to Knowledge and Information in the Social Sciences
and Humanities. Flushing, New York, Queens College Press, 23-43.
Khawan, Y. J. (1991). Epistemological grounds for cybernetic models.
Journal of the
American Society for Information Science, 42(5), 372-377.
Mayerhoefer, J. (1977). The scientific library - a cybernetic system.
LIBER Bulletin,
(7/8), 156-170.
Penland, P. R. & Williams, J. G. (1972). Cybernetic analysis of communication systems.
IN: ISLIC International Conference on Information Science, Proceedings, Tel Aviv, 29
August-3 September 1971. Edited by L. Vilentchuk. Tel Aviv, National Center of
Scientific and Technological Information, 421-436.
Reisig, G. H. R. (1978). Information-system structure by communication-technology
concepts: a cybernetic model approach. Information Processing and Management,
14(6), 405-417.
Sheldon, J. C. (1980). A cybernetic theory of physical science professions: the causes
of periodic normal and revolutionary science between 1000 and 1870 AD.
Scientometrics, 2(2), 147-167.
Wellisch, H. H. (1980). The cybernetics of bibliographic control: toward a theory of
document retrieval systems. Journal of the American Society for Information
Science, 31(1), 41-50.
Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. New York: Wiley.
See also: Information science, related fields
Birger Hjørland
Last edited: 27-10-2006