Terminology.

E-books are also referred to as "ebooks", "eBooks", "Ebooks", "e-Books", "e-journals", "e-editions", or "digital books". A device that is designed specifically for reading e-books is called an "e-reader", "ebook device", or "eReader".

History.

"The Readies" (1930).

Some trace the concept of an e-reader, a device that would enable the user to view books on a screen, to a 1930 manifesto by Bob Brown, written after watching his first "talkie" (movie with sound). He titled it "The Readies", playing off the idea of the "talkie". In his book, Brown says movies have outmaneuvered the book by creating the "talkies" and, as a result, reading should find a new medium: Brown's notion, however, was much more focused on reforming orthography and vocabulary, than on medium ("It is time to pull out the stopper" and begin "a bloody revolution of the word."): introducing huge numbers of portmanteau symbols to replace normal words, and punctuation to simulate action or movement; so it is not clear whether this fits into the history of "e-books" or not. Later e-readers never followed a model at all like Brown's; however, he correctly predicted the miniaturization and portability of e-readers. In an article, Jennifer Schuessler writes, "The machine, Brown argued, would allow readers to adjust the type size, avoid paper cuts and save trees, all while hastening the day when words could be'recorded directly on the palpitating ether.'" Brown believed that the e-reader (and his notions for changing text itself) would bring a completely new life to reading. Schuessler correlates it with a DJ spinning bits of old songs to create a beat or an entirely new song, as opposed to just a remix of a familiar song.

Inventor.

The inventor of the first e-book is not widely agreed upon. Some notable candidates include the following:

Roberto Busa (1946–1970).

The first e-book may be the "Index Thomisticus", a heavily annotated electronic index to the works of Thomas Aquinas, prepared by Roberto Busa, S.J. beginning in 1946 and completed in the 1970s. Although originally stored on a single computer, a distributable CD-ROM version appeared in 1989. However, this work is sometimes omitted; perhaps because the digitized text was a means for studying written texts and developing linguistic concordances, rather than as a published edition in its own right. In 2005, the Index was published online.

Ángela Ruiz Robles (1949).

In 1949, Ángela Ruiz Robles, a teacher from Ferrol, Spain, patented the "Enciclopedia Mecánica", or the Mechanical Encyclopedia, a mechanical device which operated on compressed air where text and graphics were contained on spools that users would load onto rotating spindles. Her idea was to create a device which would decrease the number of books that her pupils carried to school. The final device was planned to include audio recordings, a magnifying glass, a calculator and an electric light for night reading. Her device was never put into production but a prototype is kept in the National Museum of Science and Technology in A Coruña.

Douglas Engelbart and Andries van Dam (1960s).

Alternatively, some historians consider electronic books to have started in the early 1960s, with the NLS project headed by Douglas Engelbart at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), and the Hypertext Editing System and FRESS projects headed by Andries van Dam at Brown University. FRESS documents ran on IBM mainframes and were structure-oriented rather than line-oriented; they were formatted dynamically for different users, display hardware, window sizes, and so on, as well as having automated tables of contents, indexes, and so on. All these systems also provided extensive hyperlinking, graphics, and other capabilities. Van Dam is generally thought to have coined the term "electronic book", and it was established enough to use in an article title by 1985.  FRESS was used for reading extensive primary texts online, as well as for annotation and online discussions in several courses, including English Poetry and Biochemistry. Brown's faculty made extensive use of FRESS; for example the philosopher Roderick Chisholm used it to produce several of his books. Thus in the Preface to "Person and Object" (1979) he writes "The book would not have been completed without the epoch-making File Retrieval and Editing System..." Brown University's work in electronic book systems continued for many years, including US Navy funded projects for electronic repair-manuals; a large-scale distributed hypermedia system known as InterMedia; a spinoff company Electronic Book Technologies that built DynaText, the first SGML-based e-reader system; and the Scholarly Technology Group's extensive work on the Open eBook standard.

Michael S. Hart (1971).

Despite the extensive earlier history, several publications report Michael S. Hart as the inventor of the e-book. In 1971, the operators of the Xerox Sigma V mainframe at the University of Illinois gave Hart extensive computer-time. Seeking a worthy use of this resource, he created his first electronic document by typing the United States Declaration of Independence into a computer in plain text. Hart planned to create documents using plain text to make them as easy as possible to download and view on devices.

Early implementations.

After Hart first adapted the U.S. Declaration of Independence into an electronic document in 1971, "Project Gutenberg" was launched to create electronic copies of more texts, especially books. Another early e-book implementation was the desktop prototype for a proposed notebook computer, the "Dynabook," in the 1970s at PARC: a general-purpose portable personal computer capable of displaying books for reading. In 1980, the U.S. Department of Defense began concept development for a portable electronic delivery device for technical maintenance information called project PEAM, the Portable Electronic Aid for Maintenance. Detailed specifications were completed in FY 1981/82, and prototype development began with Texas Instruments that same year. Four prototypes were produced and delivered for testing in 1986, and tests were completed in 1987. The final summary report was produced in 1989 by the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, authored by Robert Wisher and J. Peter Kincaid. A patent application for the PEAM device, titled "Apparatus for delivering procedural type instructions", was submitted by Texas Instruments on December 4, 1985, listing John K. Harkins and Stephen H. Morriss as inventors.  In 1992, Sony launched the Data Discman, an electronic book reader that could read e-books that were stored on CDs. One of the electronic publications that could be played on the Data Discman was called "The Library of the Future". Early e-books were generally written for specialty areas and a limited audience, meant to be read only by small and devoted interest groups. The scope of the subject matter of these e-books included technical manuals for hardware, manufacturing techniques, and other subjects. In the 1990s, the general availability of the Internet made transferring electronic files much easier, including e-books.  In 1993, Paul Baim released a freeware HyperCard stack, called Ebook, that allowed easy import of any text file to create a pageable version similar to an electronic paperback book. A notable feature was automatic tracking of the last page read so that on returning to the 'book' you were taken back to where you had previously left off reading. The title of this stack may have been the first instance of the term 'ebook' used in the modern context.

E-book formats.

As e-book formats emerged and proliferated, some garnered support from major software companies, such as Adobe with its PDF format that was introduced in 1993. Unlike most other formats, PDF documents are generally tied to a particular dimension and layout, rather than adjusting dynamically to the current page, window, or another size. Different e-reader devices followed different formats, most of them accepting books in only one or a few formats, thereby fragmenting the e-book market even more. Due to the exclusiveness and limited readerships of e-books, the fractured market of independent publishers and specialty authors lacked consensus regarding a standard for packaging and selling e-books.  Meanwhile, scholars formed the Text Encoding Initiative, which developed consensus guidelines for encoding books and other materials of scholarly interest for a variety of analytic uses as well as reading, and countless literary and other works have been developed using the TEI approach. In the late 1990s, a consortium formed to develop the Open eBook format as a way for authors and publishers to provide a single source-document which many book-reading software and hardware platforms could handle. Several scholars from the TEI were closely involved in the early development of Open eBook. Focused on portability, Open eBook as defined required subsets of XHTML and CSS; a set of multimedia formats (others could be used, but there must also be a fallback in one of the required formats), and an XML schema for a "manifest", to list the components of a given e-book, identify a table of contents, cover art, and so on. This format led to the open format EPUB. Google Books has converted many public domain works to this open format.  In 2010, e-books continued to gain in their own specialist and underground markets. Many e-book publishers began distributing books that were in the public domain. At the same time, authors with books that were not accepted by publishers offered their works online so they could be seen by others. Unofficial (and occasionally unauthorized) catalogs of books became available on the web, and sites devoted to e-books began disseminating information about e-books to the public. Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. Consumer e-book publishing market are controlled by the "Big Five". The "Big Five" publishers are: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.

Libraries.

U.S. libraries began to offer free e-books to the public in 1998 through their websites and associated services, although the e-books were primarily scholarly, technical or professional in nature, and could not be downloaded. In 2003, libraries began offering free downloadable popular fiction and non-fiction e-books to the public, launching an e-book lending model that worked much more successfully for public libraries. The number of library e-book distributors and lending models continued to increase over the next few years. From 2005 to 2008, libraries experienced a 60% growth in e-book collections. In 2010, a Public Library Funding and Technology Access Study by the American Library Association found that 66% of public libraries in the U.S. were offering e-books, and a large movement in the library industry began to seriously examine the issues relating to e-book lending, acknowledging a "tipping point" when e-book technology would become widely established. Content from public libraries can be downloaded to e-readers using application software like Overdrive and Hoopla.  The U.S. National Library of Medicine has for many years provided PubMed, a comprehensive bibliography of medical literature. In early 2000, NLM set up the PubMed Central repository, which stores full-text e-book versions of many medical journal articles and books, through cooperation with scholars and publishers in the field. Pubmed Central also now provides archiving and access to over 4.1 million articles, maintained in a standard XML format known as the Journal Article Tag Suite (or "JATS").  Despite the widespread adoption of e-books, some publishers and authors have not endorsed the concept of electronic publishing, citing issues with user demand, copyright infringement and challenges with proprietary devices and systems. In a survey of interlibrary loan (ILL) librarians, it was found that 92% of libraries held e-books in their collections and that 27% of those libraries had negotiated ILL rights for some of their e-books. This survey found significant barriers to conducting interlibrary loan for e-books. Patron-driven acquisition (PDA) has been available for several years in public libraries, allowing vendors to streamline the acquisition process by offering to match a library's selection profile to the vendor's e-book titles. The library's catalog is then populated with records for all of the e-books that match the profile. The decision to purchase the title is left to the patrons, although the library can set purchasing conditions such as a maximum price and purchasing caps so that the dedicated funds are spent according to the library's budget. The 2012 meeting of the Association of American University Presses included a panel on the PDA of books produced by university presses, based on a preliminary report by Joseph Esposito, a digital publishing consultant who has studied the implications of PDA with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Challenges.

Although the demand for e-book services in libraries has grown in the first two decades of the 21st century, difficulties keep libraries from providing some e-books to clients. Publishers will sell e-books to libraries, but in most cases they will only give libraries a limited license to the title, meaning that the library does not "own" the electronic text but is allowed to circulate it for either a certain period of time, or a certain number of check outs, or both. When a library purchases an e-book license, the cost is at least three times what it would be for a personal consumer. E-book licenses are more expensive than paper-format editions because publishers are concerned that an e-book that is sold could theoretically be read and/or checked out by a huge number of users, potentially damaging sales. However, some studies have found the opposite effect to be true (for example, Hilton and Wikey 2010).

Archival storage.

The Internet Archive and Open Library offer more than six million fully accessible public domain e-books. Project Gutenberg has over 52,000 freely available public domain e-books.

Dedicated hardware readers and mobile software.

An e-reader, also called an e-book reader or e-book device, is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading e-books and digital periodicals. An e-reader is similar in form, but more limited in purpose than a tablet. In comparison to tablets, many e-readers are better than tablets for reading because they are more portable, have better readability in sunlight and have longer battery life. In July 2010, online bookseller Amazon.com reported sales of e-books for its proprietary Kindle outnumbered sales of hardcover books for the first time ever during the second quarter of 2010, saying it sold 140 e-books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there was no digital edition. By January 2011, e-book sales at Amazon had surpassed its paperback sales. In the overall US market, paperback book sales are still much larger than either hardcover or e-book; the American Publishing Association estimated e-books represented 8.5% of sales as of mid-2010, up from 3% a year before. At the end of the first quarter of 2012, e-book sales in the United States surpassed hardcover book sales for the first time.  Until late 2013, use of an e-reader was not allowed on airplanes during takeoff and landing by the FAA. In November 2013, the FAA allowed use of e-readers on airplanes at all times if it is in Airplane Mode, which means all radios turned off, and Europe followed this guidance the next month. In 2014, "The New York Times" predicted that by 2018 e-books will make up over 50% of total consumer publishing revenue in the United States and Great Britain.

Applications.

Some of the major book retailers and multiple third-party developers offer free (and in some third-party cases, premium paid) e-reader software applications (apps) for the Mac and PC computers as well as for Android, Blackberry, iPad, iPhone, Windows Phone and Palm OS devices to allow the reading of e-books and other documents independently of dedicated e-book devices. Examples are apps for the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, iBooks, Kobo eReader and Sony Reader.

Formats.

Writers and publishers have many formats to choose from when publishing e-books. Each format has advantages and disadvantages. The most popular e-readers and their natively supported formats are shown below:

Digital rights management.

Most e-book publishers do not warn their customers about the possible implications of the digital rights management tied to their products. Generally, they claim that digital rights management is meant to prevent illegal copying of the e-book. However, in many cases, it is also possible that digital rights management will result in the complete denial of access by the purchaser to the e-book. The e-books sold by most major publishers and electronic retailers, which are Amazon.com, Google, Barnes & Noble, Kobo Inc. and Apple Inc., are DRM-protected and tied to the publisher's e-reader software or hardware. The first major publisher to omit DRM was Tor Books, one of the largest publishers of science fiction and fantasy, in 2012. Smaller e-book publishers such as O'Reilly Media, Carina Press and Baen Books had already forgone DRM previously.

Production.

Some e-books are produced simultaneously with the production of a printed format, as described in electronic publishing, though in many instances they may not be put on sale until later. Often, e-books are produced from pre-existing hard-copy books, generally by document scanning, sometimes with the use of robotic book scanners, having the technology to quickly scan books without damaging the original print edition. Scanning a book produces a set of image files, which may additionally be converted into text format by an OCR program. Occasionally, as in some projects, an e-book may be produced by re-entering the text from a keyboard. Sometimes only the electronic version of a book is produced by the publisher. It is possible to release an e-book chapter by chapter as each chapter is written. This is useful in fields such as information technology where topics can change quickly in the months that it takes to write a typical book. It is also possible to convert an electronic book to a printed book by print on demand. However, these are exceptions as tradition dictates that a book be launched in the print format and later if the author wishes an electronic version is produced. "The New York Times" keeps a list of best-selling e-books, for both fiction and non-fiction.

Reading data.

All of the e-readers and reading apps are capable of tracking e-book reading data, and the data could contain which e-books users open, how long the users spend reading each e-book and how much of each e-book is finished. In December 2014, Kobo released e-book reading data collected from over 21 million of its users worldwide. Some of the results were that only 44.4% of UK readers finished the bestselling e-book The Goldfinch and the 2014 top selling e-book in the UK, "One Cold Night", was finished by 69% of readers; this is evidence that while popular e-books are being completely read, some e-books are only sampled.

Comparison to printed books.

Advantages.

In the space that a comparably sized physical book takes up, an e-reader can contain thousands of e-books, limited only by its memory capacity. Depending on the device, an e-book may be readable in low light or even total darkness. Many e-readers have a built-in light source, can enlarge or change fonts, use text-to-speech software to read the text aloud for visually impaired, elderly or dyslexic people or just for convenience. Additionally, e-readers allow readers to look up words or find more information about the topic immediately using an online dictionary. Amazon reports that 85% of its e-book readers look up a word while reading.  Printed books use three times more raw materials and 78 times more water to produce when compared to e-books. While an e-reader costs more than most individual books, e-books may have a lower cost than paper books. E-books may be printed for less than the price of traditional books using on-demand book printers. Moreover, numerous e-books are available online free of charge on sites such as Project Gutenberg. For example, all books printed before 1923 are in the public domain in the United States, which enables websites to host ebook versions of such titles for free.  Depending on possible digital rights management, e-books (unlike physical books) can be backed up and recovered in the case of loss or damage to the device on which they are stored, a new copy can be downloaded without incurring an additional cost from the distributor, as well as being able to synchronize the reading location, highlights and bookmarks across several devices.

Disadvantages.

There may be a lack of privacy for the user's e-book reading activities; for example, Amazon knows the user's identity, what the user is reading, whether the user has finished the book, what page the user is on, how long the user has spent on each page, and which passages the user may have highlighted. One obstacle to wide adoption of the e-book is that a large portion of people value the printed book as an object itself, including aspects such as the texture, smell, weight and appearance on the shelf. Print books are also considered valuable cultural items, and symbols of liberal education and the humanities. Kobo found that 60% of e-books that are purchased from their e-book store are never opened and found that the more expensive the book is, the more likely the reader would at least open the e-book.  Joe Queenan has written about the pros and cons of e-books: Apart from all the emotional and habitual aspects, there are also some readability and usability issues that need to be addressed by publishers and software developers. Many e-book readers who complain about eyestrain, lack of overview and distractions could be helped if they could use a more suitable device or a more user-friendly reading application, but when they buy or borrow a DRM-protected e-book, they often have to read the book on the default device or application, even if it has insufficient functionality.  While a paper book is vulnerable to various threats, including water damage, mold and theft, e-books files may be corrupted, deleted or otherwise lost as well as pirated. Where the ownership of a paper book is fairly straightforward (albeit subject to restrictions on renting or copying pages, depending on the book), the purchaser of an e-book's digital file has conditional access with the possible loss of access to the e-book due to digital rights management provisions, copyright issues, the provider's business failing or possibly if the user's credit card expired.

Market share.

United States.

In 2015, the Author Earnings Report estimated that Amazon held a 74% market share of the e-books sold in the U.S. By the end of 2016, that year's Report estimated that Amazon held 80% of the e-book market share in the U.S.

Spain.

In 2013, Carrenho estimates that e-books would have a 15% market share in Spain in 2015.

UK.

According to Nielsen Book Research, e-book share went up from 20% to 33% between 2012 and 2014, but down to 29% in the first quarter of 2015. Amazon-published and self-published titles accounted for 17 million of those books (worth £58m) in 2014, representing 5% of the overall book market and 15% of the digital market. The volume and value sales, although similar to 2013, had seen a 70% increase since 2012.

Germany.

The Wischenbart Report 2015 estimates the e-book market share to be 4.3%.

Brazil.

The Brazilian e-book market is only emerging. Brazilians are technology savvy, and that attitude is shared by the government. In 2013, around 2.5% of all trade titles sold were in digital format. This was a 400% growth over 2012 when only 0.5% of trade titles were digital. In 2014, the growth was slower, and Brazil had 3.5% of its trade titles being sold as e-books.

China.

The Wischenbart Report 2015 estimates the e-book market share to be around 1%.

Public domain books.

Public domain books are those whose copyrights have expired, meaning they can be copied, edited, and sold freely without restrictions. Many of these books can be downloaded for free from websites like the Internet Archive, in formats that many e-readers support, such as PDF, TXT, and EPUB. Books in other formats may be converted to an e-reader-compatible format using e-book writing software, for example Calibre.

An electronic book, also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Although sometimes defined as "an electronic version of a printed book", some e-books exist without a printed equivalent. E-books can be read on dedicated e-reader devices, but also on any computer device that features a controllable viewing screen, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones.

E-Book (deutsch E-Buch; englisch ",, ") steht für ein elektronisches Buch (engl. "") und bezeichnet Werke in elektronischer Buchform, die auf E-Book-Readern oder mit spezieller Software auf PCs, Tabletcomputern oder Smartphones gelesen werden können. Mit der Verbreitung von E-Book-Readern werden E-Books zunehmend in einem Format angeboten, das sich automatisch an unterschiedliche Bildschirmgrößen anpasst (reflowable content).


History.

Origins.

Basters were mainly persons of mixed-race descent who at one time would have been absorbed in the white community. This term came to refer to an economic and cultural group, and it included the most economically advanced non-white population at the Cape, who had higher status than the natives. Some of the Basters acted as supervisors of other servants and were the confidential employees of their white masters. Sometimes, these were treated almost as members of the white family. Many were descended from white men, if not directly from men in the families they worked for.  The group also included Khoi, free blacks, and persons of mixed-race descent who had succeeded in acquiring property and establishing themselves as farmers in their own right. The term Orlam ("Oorlam") was sometimes applied to persons who could also be known as Baster. Orlams were the Khoi and Coloured (mixed-race) people who spoke Dutch and practiced a largely European way of life. Some Basters distinguished themselves from the Coloured, whom they described as descendants of Europeans and Malay or Indonesian slaves brought to South Africa.  In the early 18th century, Basters often owned farms in the colony, but with growing competition for land and the pressure of race discrimination, they were oppressed by their white neighbours and the government. Some became absorbed into the Coloured servant class, but those seeking to maintain independence moved to the fringes of settlement. From about 1750, the Kamiesberge in the extreme north-west of the colony became the main area of settlement of independent Baster farmers, some of whom had substantial followings of servants and clients.  After about 1780, increasing competition and oppression from whites in this area resulted in the majority of the Baster families moving to the frontier of the interior. They settled in the middle valley of the Orange River, where they settled near De Tuin. Basters of the middle Orange were subsequently persuaded by London Missionary Society missionaries to adopt the name Griqua. Some sources say they chose the name themselves in honor of an early leader.

Move to central Namibia.

Basters announced their intention to leave the Cape Colony in 1868 to search for land in the interior north. About 90 families of 100 left the region, the first 30 in 1869, with others following. They settled in Rehoboth in what is now central Namibia, on a high plateau between the Namib and Kalahari deserts. There they continued an economy based on managing herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. They were followed by Johann Christian Friedrich Heidmann, a missionary of the Rhenish Mission, who served them from 1871 until his retirement in 1907. By 1872, Basters numbered 333 in Rehoboth. They founded the Free Republic of Rehoboth (Rehoboth Gebiet) and designed a German-influenced national flag. They adopted a constitution known as, literally. It continues to govern the internal affairs of the Baster community into the 21st century.  Basters established a community based on birth. Under these laws, a citizen is a child of a Rehoboth citizen, or a person otherwise accepted as a citizen by its rules. Families continued to join them from the Cape Colony, and the community reached about 800 by 1876, when 80 to 90 families had settled there. The area was also occupied by native Damara people, but Basters did not include them in population reports.  While Basters remained predominantly based around Rehoboth, some Basters continued to trek northward, settling in the southern Angolan city of Lubango. There they became known as the "Ouivamo." They had a similar culture based on maintaining herds of livestock.  Through the 1870s, Basters of Rehoboth suffered frequent losses from their herds, with livestock raided and stolen by the much larger groups of surrounding Nama and Herero peoples, who were themselves in competition. In 1880 Jan Afrikaner gathered 600 men against the Herero, and different Nama groups mustered about 1,000 warriors, with the Herero fielding about the same number. Basters tried to make alliances to survive, as they were outnumbered by both sides. The wars continued until about 1884, and, while suffering losses, Basters continued.  Through the 1880s, the community at Rehoboth were joined by other Baster families from Grootfontein (South) (whom missionary Heidmann had earlier tried to recruit), Okahandja, and Otjimbingwe. While based on descent within the families, they also accepted both blacks and whites who applied to join the community.

German South West Africa.

In the process of the German annexation of South West Africa, Baster Kaptein Hermanus van Wyk signed a 'Treaty of Protection and Friendship' with the German Empire on 11 October 1884. It was the first of its kind between any native-descended peoples in the territory and the Germans (Basters were considered native because of their partial African descent). Other sources date this treaty 15 September 1885, Under this, "the independent executive powers of the Kaptein and Baster Council, especially for "foreign policy", were significantly curtailed."  In 1893 the Germans established the territory of the Basters, known as the Rehoboth "Gebiet," which the settlers tried to expand through negotiation. In this area the Paternal Laws were recognized. In addition, the German colony had an administrative district known as Rehoboth, which was larger than the Baster-governed area, with the outside areas under German (white) colonial law. Most of the land was developed as farms owned by European, especially German whites.  A second "Treaty concerning National Service of the Rehoboth Basters" of 1895 established a small armed contingent among the Basters, which fought alongside German colonists and forces in a number of battles and skirmishes against indigenous peoples. When the German colonists encountered a new wave of conflicts with native peoples, Basters fought with them in quelling the uprisings of the OvaHerero (1896), the Swartbooi Nama (1897), and the Bondelswarts (1903). They also participated in the German colonial war and widespread genocide against the OvaHerero and Nama in the Herero Wars of 1904–1907. German census reporting on Basters noted their high mobility. The numbers they recorded for the people changed as the Germans changed their racial classifications. Rather than using people's citizenship (as in the community of Basters), they began to classify people according to appearance, as was done in South Africa. A comparison of records suggests that in 1912, there were about 3,000 Basters in the Rehoboth District. Most Basters were concentrated in the Rehoboth Gebiet, where they lived under their own law.  Relations between Rehoboth and Germany remained close for more than 20 years until 1914, following the outbreak of World War I. The German "Schutztruppe" ordered all Baster able-bodied men into military service, which they resisted. Believing that the German "Schutztruppe" had little chance against the superior South African forces (allied with the British), Basters tried to maintain neutrality towards both, but feared losing their limited autonomy.  Baster Council believed they reached agreement with Governor Theodor Seitz of South-West Africa that their men would only be used behind the lines. They did not want to participate in a war between whites. They disapproved of their men being issued German uniforms, fearing they would be considered regular soldiers. Despite their protests, Baster soldiers were assigned to duties far from the "Gebeit." When Basters were assigned to guard South African prisoners of war in February 1915 at a camp at Uitdraii, they protested because nearly 50 of their men were connected to the people through historic kinship and language. Some aided escape by prisoners, and the Germans limited the number of bullets they issued to the Basters. The South Africans in turn protested being guarded by men they considered as Coloured (according to their racial classifications).  General Louis Botha had earlier written to Lieutenant Colonel Franke against using armed non-whites in service, as he was aware of both Cameroons and Basters serving under arms. Botha said he was ensuring that non-whites were not armed; Franke said that he was using the Cameroon and Baster companies only to police non-white communities.  Cornelius van Wyk, second "Kaptein" of the Rehoboth Basters, arranged to secretly meet with South African General Louis Botha on April 1 in Walvis Bay to assure him of the Basters' neutrality. No record was made of the meeting so it is unclear exactly what was promised. Van Wyk was hoping for assurances to have Baster territory and rights acknowledged if South Africa took over the German colony. Botha advised him to stay out of the war.  Due to South African successes, the German officers advised the Baster Council that they were moving the prisoners of war and Baster guards to the north. At a meeting, they said Basters had three days to decide whether to comply; the latter feared that having their men in the north would mean they would be considered true combatants against South Africa, endangering their own position. Learning of the planned deployment, the Baster guards advised the Council they would not go. Although negotiations were in process, they learned the trains were due to leave the next day, and the night of April 18, numerous Basters defected from German service, taking arms with them that they intended to turn in at Rehoboth. About 300 men set up defenses in two laagers. Learning of this, the Germans disarmed other Baster soldiers in other posts; in the process, one unarmed Baster was killed. Rehoboth was in an uproar, although leaders tried to meet with the Germans to resolve the issues.  In the meantime, Basters and Nama policemen worked to disarm German officers within the Rehoboth Gebiet, but wounded one fatally and killed another outright. An armed contingent including Nama policemen killed several German citizens, including all of the Karl Bauer family. With that, negotiations were over.  On 22 April 1915 Lieutenant Colonel Bethe informed the Basters in writing that they had violated the protection treaty and their acts were considered hostile by the Germans. Governor Theodor Seitz cancelled the protection treaty with the Basters, intending to attack Rehoboth. Van Wyk informed General Botha, who advised him to try to get the Basters out of the area. They started moving by wagons and taking large herds of livestock, with many Basters trying to reach the mountains. German attacks against Basters took place around the region.  According to Baster history, a 14-year-old Baster girl, who worked for the Germans in a camp, overheard a drunken conversation about their planned attack against the Basters. She took the word to the Kaptein, and around 700 Basters retreated to Sam Khubis south-east of Rehoboth in the mountains, to prepare for German attack. This group included women and children. Van Wyk had hidden his wife and children at farm Garies, along with the wives and children of Stoffel and Willem van Wyk. Stoffel's wife, two children, an adult daughter of Cornelius van Wyk, and his 18-year-old son, were all killed there. The others, including van Wyk's wife Sara, were taken to Leutwein station and released on May 13.  On 8 May 1915, the Germans attacked in the Battle of Sam Khubis, where the stronghold was defended by 700 to 800 Basters. Despite repeated attacks and the use of two cannons and three Maxim machine-guns, the Germans were unable to destroy the Basters' position. They ended the attack at sunset. At the end of the day, Basters had all but run out of ammunition and expected defeat. That night they appealed to God, pledging to commemorate the day forever should they be spared.  Their prayer is engraved on a memorial plaque they later installed at Sam Khubis and reads: "God van ons vaderen / sterke en machtige God / heilig is Uw naam op die ganse aarde / Uw die de hemelen geschapen heft / neigt Uw oor tot ons / luister na die smekingen van Uwe kinderen / de dood staart ons in het gesicht / die kinderen der bose zoeken onze levens / Red ons uit die hand van onze vijanden / en beskermt onze vrouen en kinderen / En dit zult vier ons en onze nacheschlacht zijn een dag als een Zondag / waarop wij Uw naam prijzen en Uw goedertierenheid tot in euwigheid niet vergeten"  "God our father / strong and powerful / holy be Thy name all over the earth / Thou that made heaven / bow Thou down to us / listen to the cries of Thy children / death stares us in the face / the children of evil seek our lives / Save us from the hand of our enemies / and protect our wives and children / and this shall be for us and our kin a day like a Sunday / on which we shall praise Thy name / and Thy gratitude shall not be forgotten in eternity." The Germans had received orders to retreat, which they did the next morning. Rehoboth's Baster community survived. This day is celebrated annually by Basters as integral to their history and fortitude. Both units of the Germans were ordered to retreat in order to mobilize against advancing South African troops which reached Rehoboth.  As Basters returned to Rehoboth, some killed Germans on their farms. The Germans posted some forces for protection, but withdrew them on May 23 as the South Africans approached. Basters took German livestock and plundered their farms, also attacking the two missionaries' houses. The bloodshed on both sides left long resentment after the war.

South African mandate rule (1915-1966).

South Africa defeated the Germans, concluding the Peace of Khorab on July 9, 1915. It formally took over administration of South-West Africa and established martial law. Colonel H. Mentz advised the Baster leaders to avoid all confrontation with the Germans, in an effort to defuse tensions, and to report livestock losses or other problems to his administration at Windhoek. He also said that South African patrols would regularly be sent to the Rehoboth area to keep the peace.  After the conclusion of the Great War, Basters applied to have their native land become a British Protectorate like Basutoland, but were turned down by South Africa. All special rights as granted to Basters by the Germans were revoked under the South African mandate to govern South-West Africa. South Africa conducted regular censuses of the Basters from 1921 to 1991; the records reflect their ideas about racial classifications.  Some Basters continued to push for the legitimacy of the 'Free Republic of Rehoboth.' Claiming that the republic had been recognised by the League of Nations, they said international law supported their desire for self-determination, which the League used as a principle in the organization of new nations after the Great War. They asserted that the Republic should have the status of a sovereign nation. In 1952, Basters presented a petition to the United Nations (the successor to the League of Nations) to this effect, with no result. But they had some practical autonomy under South Africa. During this period, some Baster leaders founded new political parties and were active in various movements in South-West Africa, also known as Namibia. By the early 1960s they were among the first to petition the United Nations for international intervention to end the South African control of Namibia. The Owambo and other indigenous peoples also agitated for an end to South African colonialism, especially as that state had established apartheid with severe legal racial discrimination against the African peoples. South Africa passed the ‘Rehoboth Self-government Act’ of 1976, providing a kind of autonomy for the Basters. They settled for a semi-autonomous Baster Homeland (known as "Baster Gebiet") based around Rehoboth, similar in status to the South African bantustans.  This was established in 1976 and an election was held for Kaptein. In 1979, Johannes "Hans" Diergaardt won a court challenge to the disputed election, in which incumbent Dr. Ben Africa had placed first. Diergaardt was installed as the 5th Kaptein of the Basters in accordance with the regulations of the 1976 Rehoboth Self-Determination Act and the Basters' Paternal Laws.  In 1981, South West Africa had a population of one million, divided into more than a dozen ethnic and tribal groups, and 39 political parties. With not more than 35,000 people at the time, Basters had become one of the smaller minority groups in the country of over one million.  In the 1980s, Basters still controlled about 1.4 million hectares of farmland in this territory. In earlier times, requirements for farms were thought to be about 7,000 ha, but Basters claimed they could also survive with farms of 4,000 ha. Nonetheless, even by the 1930s they were having to find alternative forms of employment to support their population. In 1981, the Baster population was estimated to at about 25,181 by Hartmut Lang, according to his 1998 article on the Baster group. Requirements for viable farms suggest that Namibia could not achieve self-sufficiency for its expanding population through farming; land redistribution could not yield enough area for viable farms.

Independence.

The "Baster Gebiet" operated until 29 July 1989 and the imminent independence of Namibia. Upon assuming power in 1990, Namibia's new ruling party, the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) announced it would not recognise any special legal status for the Baster community. Many Basters felt that while SWAPO claimed it spoke for the whole country, it too strongly promoted the interests of its own political base in Ovamboland.  The Kaptein's Council sought compensation for Rehoboth lands that it claimed had been confiscated by the government, with much sold to non-Basters. The Council was given "locus standi" (the right of a party to appear and be heard before a court), but "in 1995, a High Court verdict declared that Rehoboth lands were voluntarily handed over by the Rehoboth Baster community to the then new Namibian government."  In 1998, Kaptein Hans Diergaardt, elected in 1979 when Rehoboth had autonomous status under South Africa, filed an official complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Committee, charging Namibia with violations of minority rights of Basters. In "Diergaardt v. Namibia" (2000) the committee ruled that there was evidence of linguistic discrimination, as Namibia refused to use Afrikaans in dealing with Basters.  In 1999, following the death of Diergaardt, Basters elected John McNab as the 6th Kaptein of their community. He has no official status under the Namibian government. He has protested against the government's management of former Baster land and says his farmers were forced to buy it back at high prices. Much of it has been sold to others since independence.  As preparations were underway for Sam Khubis Day in 2006, a respected social worker, Hettie Rose-Junius, asked the organising committee to "consider inviting a delegation from the Nama-speaking people to this year’s festivities and in future." The chairperson rejected the suggestion by saying that historically the Nama had a separate fight with the Germans and were not involved with the Basters. Activities on this day include a re-enactment of the attack on the Basters in 1915, a flag raising, wreath laying and a church service.  In February 2007, the Kapteins Council has represented the Basters at the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), an international pro-democracy organization founded in 1991. Operating in The Hague, it works to "facilitate the voices of unrepresented and marginalised nations and peoples worldwide, helping minorities to gain self-determination." Since November 2012, the UNPO has called on the Namibian government to recognize Basters as a 'traditional authority' in their historic territory, as it has for some other ethnic groups in the country.

Culture.

Paternal Laws.

The first Kaptein's Council established the "Vaderlike Wette" (Paternal Laws), established as a constitution of Baster people in the Free Republic of Rehoboth. These have influenced the actions of the Baster community into the 21st century, although they no longer have the force of law.  Basters have a long democratic tradition of electing their leadership. According to the Paternal Laws of 1872, a Kaptein is elected for life. This Kaptein was granted the powers to appoint members of a Council, and together they formed the Executive government of Rehoboth. The Paternal Laws also provided for a Peoples Council ("Volksraad") which was elected every five years; it formed the Legislature of the Rehoboth government.  The Basters have had six Kapteins since the Paternal Laws were enacted:  Every male "burger" (citizen) of Rehoboth had the right to apply for a free piece of land at the age of 18. Although the size of this erf was decreased from to about, due to land shortage and servicing costs, Basters continued to honor this provision until 21 March 1990, when the new socialist government took over the lands. The newly independent Namibian government passed legislation about land use and title that took precedence over Baster traditions. Basters can no longer allocate land to their young men. The land is controlled by the local town council, which replaced the Chief's Council.

Religion.

Basters from Mainline churches are mostly Calvinist. They sing traditional hymns almost identical to those of the 17th-century Netherlands; these songs were preserved in the colony and their group during a period when the Netherlands churches were absorbing new music.

Traditional leadership.

The first Kaptein was Hermanus van Wyk, the 'Moses' of the Baster nation, who led the community to Rehoboth from South Africa. He served as Kaptein until his death in 1905. After his death, the German colonial government established a separate council. The Rehoboth Basters did not elect another Kaptein until the United Kingdom took over the territory as a British Protectorate in 1914 during World War I. Basters elected Cornelius van Wyk as Kaptein. He was not officially recognised by the South African authorities, which administered the territory from 1915 to Namibian independence in 1990.

Other Baster communities.

Similar terms are used for unrelated mixed-race Dutch and native communities in South Africa and elsewhere. For instance, a mixed-race community in the Richtersveld in South Africa are known as the 'Boslys Basters.'  In Indonesia, the people of mixed Dutch and Indonesian descent are called "Blaster(an)."

The Basters (also known as Baasters, Rehobothers or Rehoboth Basters) are a Southern African ethnic group descended from White European men and Black African women, usually of Khoisan origin, but occasionally also slave women from the Cape, who resided in the Dutch Cape Colony in the 18th century. Since the second half of the 19th century, the Rehoboth Baster community has been concentrated in central Namibia, in and around the town of Rehoboth. Basters are closely related to Afrikaners, Cape Coloured and Griqua peoples of South Africa, with whom they share a language and culture.

Baster (afrikaans für "Bastard") sind Familien, die aus Beziehungen zwischen Nama-Frauen und Buren in Südwestafrika entstanden sind. Die Baster stellten 1994 mit 39.000 Menschen etwa 2,5 Prozent der namibischen Bevölkerung. Ihre Sprache ist meist Afrikaans.


Foundations.

Scope and approach.

Information science focuses on understanding problems from the perspective of the stakeholders involved and then applying information and other technologies as needed. In other words, it tackles systemic problems first rather than individual pieces of technology within that system. In this respect, one can see information science as a response to technological determinism, the belief that technology "develops by its own laws, that it realizes its own potential, limited only by the material resources available and the creativity of its developers. It must therefore be regarded as an autonomous system controlling and ultimately permeating all other subsystems of society."  Many universities have entire colleges, departments or schools devoted to the study of information science, while numerous information-science scholars work in disciplines such as communication, computer science, law, and sociology. Several institutions have formed an I-School Caucus (see "List of I-Schools"), but numerous others besides these also have comprehensive information foci.  Within information science, current issues include:

Definitions.

The first known usage of the term "information science" was in 1955. An early definition of Information science (going back to 1968, the year when the "American Documentation Institute" renamed itself as the "American Society for Information Science and Technology") states:

Related terms.

Some authors use informatics as a synonym for "information science". This is especially true when related to the concept developed by A. I. Mikhailov and other Soviet authors in the mid-1960s. The Mikhailov school saw informatics as a discipline related to the study of scientific information. Informatics is difficult to precisely define because of the rapidly evolving and interdisciplinary nature of the field. Definitions reliant on the nature of the tools used for deriving meaningful information from data are emerging in Informatics academic programs.  Regional differences and international terminology complicate the problem. Some people note that much of what is called "Informatics" today was once called "Information Science" – at least in fields such as Medical Informatics. For example, when library scientists began also to use the phrase "Information Science" to refer to their work, the term "informatics" emerged:  Another term discussed as a synonym for "information studies" is "information systems". Brian Campbell Vickery's "Information Systems" (1973) placed information systems within IS. Ellis, Allen, & Wilson (1999), on the other hand, provided a bibliometric investigation describing the relation between two "different" fields: "information science" and "information systems".

Philosophy of information.

Philosophy of information studies conceptual issues arising at the intersection of computer science, information technology, and philosophy. It includes the investigation of the conceptual nature and basic principles of information, including its dynamics, utilisation and sciences, as well as the elaboration and application of information-theoretic and computational methodologies to its philosophical problems.

Ontology.

In science and information science, an ontology formally represents knowledge as a set of concepts within a domain, and the relationships between those concepts. It can be used to reason about the entities within that domain and may be used to describe the domain.  More specifically, an ontology is a model for describing the world that consists of a set of types, properties, and relationship types. Exactly what is provided around these varies, but they are the essentials of an ontology. There is also generally an expectation that there be a close resemblance between the real world and the features of the model in an ontology.  In theory, an ontology is a "formal, explicit specification of a shared conceptualisation". An ontology renders shared vocabulary and taxonomy which models a domain with the definition of objects and/or concepts and their properties and relations.  Ontologies are the structural frameworks for organizing information and are used in artificial intelligence, the Semantic Web, systems engineering, software engineering, biomedical informatics, library science, enterprise bookmarking, and information architecture as a form of knowledge representation about the world or some part of it. The creation of domain ontologies is also fundamental to the definition and use of an enterprise architecture framework.

Careers.

Information scientist.

An information scientist is an individual, usually with a relevant subject degree or high level of subject knowledge, providing focused information to scientific and technical research staff in industry, a role quite distinct from that of a librarian. The title also applies to an individual carrying out research in information science.

Systems analyst.

A systems analyst works on creating, designing, and improving information systems for a specific need. Oftentimes a systems analyst works with a business to evaluate and implement organizational processes and techniques for accessing information in order to improve efficiency and productivity within the business.

Information professional.

An information professional is an individual who preserves, organizes, and disseminates information. Information professionals are skilled in the organization and retrieval of recorded knowledge. Traditionally, their work has been with print materials, but these skills are being increasingly used with electronic, visual, audio, and digital materials. Information professionals work in a variety of public, private, non-profit, and academic institutions. Information professionals can also be found within organisational and industrial contexts. Performing roles that include system design and development and system analysis.

History.

Early beginnings.

Information science, in studying the collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information has origins in the common stock of human knowledge. Information analysis has been carried out by scholars at least as early as the time of the Abyssinian Empire with the emergence of cultural depositories, what is today known as libraries and archives. Institutionally, information science emerged in the 19th century along with many other social science disciplines. As a science, however, it finds its institutional roots in the history of science, beginning with publication of the first issues of "Philosophical Transactions," generally considered the first scientific journal, in 1665 by the Royal Society (London).  The institutionalization of science occurred throughout the 18th century. In 1731, Benjamin Franklin established the Library Company of Philadelphia, the first library owned by a group of public citizens, which quickly expanded beyond the realm of books and became a center of scientific experiment, and which hosted public exhibitions of scientific experiments. Benjamin Franklin invested a town in Massachusetts with a collection of books that the town voted to make available to all free of charge, forming the first Public Library. Academie de Chirurgia (Paris) published "Memoires pour les Chirurgiens", generally considered to be the first medical journal, in 1736. The American Philosophical Society, patterned on the Royal Society (London), was founded in Philadelphia in 1743. As numerous other scientific journals and societies were founded, Alois Senefelder developed the concept of lithography for use in mass printing work in Germany in 1796.

19th century.

By the 19th century the first signs of information science emerged as separate and distinct from other sciences and social sciences but in conjunction with communication and computation. In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard invented a punched card system to control operations of the cloth weaving loom in France. It was the first use of "memory storage of patterns" system. As chemistry journals emerged throughout the 1820s and 1830s, Charles Babbage developed his "difference engine," the first step towards the modern computer, in 1822 and his "analytical engine” by 1834. By 1843 Richard Hoe developed the rotary press, and in 1844 Samuel Morse sent the first public telegraph message. By 1848 William F. Poole begins the "Index to Periodical Literature," the first general periodical literature index in the US.  In 1854 George Boole published "An Investigation into Laws of Thought...," which lays the foundations for Boolean algebra, which is later used in information retrieval. In 1860 a congress was held at Karlsruhe Technische Hochschule to discuss the feasibility of establishing a systematic and rational nomenclature for chemistry. The congress did not reach any conclusive results, but several key participants returned home with Stanislao Cannizzaro's outline (1858), which ultimately convinces them of the validity of his scheme for calculating atomic weights.  By 1865, the Smithsonian Institution began a catalog of current scientific papers, which became the "International Catalogue of Scientific Papers" in 1902. The following year the Royal Society began publication of its "Catalogue of Papers" in London. In 1868, Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and S. W. Soule produced the first practical typewriter. By 1872 Lord Kelvin devised an analogue computer to predict the tides, and by 1875 Frank Stephen Baldwin was granted the first US patent for a practical calculating machine that performs four arithmetic functions. Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison invented the telephone and phonograph in 1876 and 1877 respectively, and the American Library Association was founded in Philadelphia. In 1879 "Index Medicus" was first issued by the Library of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army, with John Shaw Billings as librarian, and later the library issues "Index Catalogue," which achieved an international reputation as the most complete catalog of medical literature.

European documentation.

The discipline of "documentation science", which marks the earliest theoretical foundations of modern information science, emerged in the late part of the 19th century in Europe together with several more scientific indexes whose purpose was to organize scholarly literature. 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. A second generation of European Documentalists emerged after the Second World War, most notably Suzanne Briet. However, "information science" as a term is not popularly used in academia until sometime in the latter part of the 20th century.  Documentalists emphasized the utilitarian integration of technology and technique toward specific social goals. According to Ronald Day, "As an organized system of techniques and technologies, documentation was understood as a player in the historical development of global organization in modernity – indeed, a major player inasmuch as that organization was dependent on the organization and transmission of information." Otlet and Lafontaine (who won the Nobel Prize in 1913) not only envisioned later technical innovations but also projected a global vision for information and information technologies that speaks directly to postwar visions of a global "information society". Otlet and Lafontaine established numerous organizations dedicated to standardization, bibliography, international associations, and consequently, international cooperation. These organizations were fundamental for ensuring international production in commerce, information, communication and modern economic development, and they later found their global form in such institutions as the League of Nations and the United Nations. Otlet designed the Universal Decimal Classification, based on Melville Dewey’s decimal classification system.  Although he lived decades before computers and networks emerged, what he discussed prefigured what ultimately became the World Wide Web. His vision of a great network of knowledge focused on documents and included the notions of hyperlinks, search engines, remote access, and social networks.  Otlet not only imagined that all the world's knowledge should be interlinked and made available remotely to anyone, but he also proceeded to build a structured document collection. This collection involved standardized paper sheets and cards filed in custom-designed cabinets according to a hierarchical index (which culled information worldwide from diverse sources) and a commercial information retrieval service (which answered written requests by copying relevant information from index cards). Users of this service were even warned if their query was likely to produce more than 50 results per search. By 1937 documentation had formally been institutionalized, as evidenced by the founding of the American Documentation Institute (ADI), later called the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

Transition to modern information science.

With the 1950s came increasing awareness of the potential of automatic devices for literature searching and information storage and retrieval. As these concepts grew in magnitude and potential, so did the variety of information science interests. By the 1960s and 70s, there was a move from batch processing to online modes, from mainframe to mini and microcomputers. Additionally, traditional boundaries among disciplines began to fade and many information science scholars joined with other programs. They further made themselves multidisciplinary by incorporating disciplines in the sciences, humanities and social sciences, as well as other professional programs, such as law and medicine in their curriculum. By the 1980s, large databases, such as Grateful Med at the National Library of Medicine, and user-oriented services such as Dialog and Compuserve, were for the first time accessible by individuals from their personal computers. The 1980s also saw the emergence of numerous special interest groups to respond to the changes. By the end of the decade, special interest groups were available involving non-print media, social sciences, energy and the environment, and community information systems. Today, information science largely examines technical bases, social consequences, and theoretical understanding of online databases, widespread use of databases in government, industry, and education, and the development of the Internet and World Wide Web.

Information dissemination in the 21st century.

Changing definition.

Dissemination has historically been interpreted as unilateral communication of information. With the advent of the internet, and the explosion in popularity of online communities, "social media has changed the information landscape in many respects, and creates both new modes of communication and new types of information", changing the interpretation of the definition of dissemination. The nature of social networks allows for faster diffusion of information than through organizational sources. The internet has changed the way we view, use, create, and store information, now it is time to re-evaluate the way we share and spread it.

Impact of social media on people and industry.

Social media networks provide an open information environment for the mass of people who have limited time or access to traditional outlets of information diffusion, this is an "increasingly mobile and social world [that] demands...new types of information skills". Social media integration as an access point is a very useful and mutually beneficial tool for users and providers. All major news providers have visibility and an access point through networks such as Facebook and Twitter maximizing their breadth of audience. Through social media people are directed to, or provided with, information by people they know. The ability to "share, like, and comment on...content" increases the reach farther and wider than traditional methods. People like to interact with information, they enjoy including the people they know in their circle of knowledge. Sharing through social media has become so influential that publishers must "play nice" if they desire to succeed. Although, it is often mutually beneficial for publishers and Facebook to "share, promote and uncover new content" to improve both user base experiences. The impact of popular opinion can spread in unimaginable ways. Social media allows interaction through simple to learn and access tools; "The Wall Street Journal" offers an app through Facebook, and "The Washington Post" goes a step further and offers an independent social app that was downloaded by 19.5 million users in 6 months, proving how interested people are in the new way of being provided information.

Social media's power to facilitate topics.

The connections and networks sustained through social media help information providers learn what is important to people. The connections people have throughout the world enable the exchange of information at an unprecedented rate. It is for this reason that these networks have been realized for the potential they provide. "Most news media monitor Twitter for breaking news", as well as news anchors frequently request the audience to tweet pictures of events. The users and viewers of the shared information have earned "opinion-making and agenda-setting power" This channel has been recognized for the usefulness of providing targeted information based on public demand.

Research vectors and applications.

The following areas are some of those that information science investigates and develops.

Information access.

Information access is an area of research at the intersection of Informatics, Information Science, Information Security, Language Technology, and Computer Science. The objectives of information access research are to automate the processing of large and unwieldy amounts of information and to simplify users' access to it. What about assigning privileges and restricting access to unauthorized users? The extent of access should be defined in the level of clearance granted for the information. Applicable technologies include information retrieval, text mining, text editing, machine translation, and text categorisation. In discussion, information access is often defined as concerning the insurance of free and closed or public access to information and is brought up in discussions on copyright, patent law, and public domain. Public libraries need resources to provide knowledge of information assurance.

Information architecture.

Information architecture (IA) is the art and science of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability. It is an emerging discipline and "community of practice" focused on bringing together principles of design and architecture to the "digital landscape". Typically it involves a model or concept of information which is used and applied to activities that require explicit details of complex information systems. These activities include library systems and database development.

Information management.

Information management (IM) is the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information. Management means the organization of and control over the structure, processing and delivery of information. Throughout the 1970s this was largely limited to files, file maintenance, and the life cycle management of paper-based files, other media and records. With the proliferation of information technology starting in the 1970s, the job of information management took on a new light and also began to include the field of data maintenance.

Information retrieval.

Information retrieval (IR) is the area of study concerned with searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching structured storage, relational databases, and the World Wide Web. Automated information retrieval systems are used to reduce what has been called "information overload". Many universities and public libraries use IR systems to provide access to books, journals and other documents. Web search engines are the most visible IR applications.  An information retrieval process begins when a user enters a query into the system. Queries are formal statements of information needs, for example search strings in web search engines. In information retrieval a query does not uniquely identify a single object in the collection. Instead, several objects may match the query, perhaps with different degrees of relevancy.  An object is an entity that is represented by information in a database. User queries are matched against the database information. Depending on the application the data objects may be, for example, text documents, images, audio, mind maps or videos. Often the documents themselves are not kept or stored directly in the IR system, but are instead represented in the system by document surrogates or metadata.  Most IR systems compute a numeric score on how well each object in the database match the query, and rank the objects according to this value. The top ranking objects are then shown to the user. The process may then be iterated if the user wishes to refine the query.

Information seeking.

Information seeking is the process or activity of attempting to obtain information in both human and technological contexts. Information seeking is related to, but different from, information retrieval (IR).  Much library and information science (LIS) research has focused on the information-seeking practices of practitioners within various fields of professional work. Studies have been carried out into the information-seeking behaviors of librarians, academics, medical professionals, engineers and lawyers (among others). Much of this research has drawn on the work done by Leckie, Pettigrew (now Fisher) and Sylvain, who in 1996 conducted an extensive review of the LIS literature (as well as the literature of other academic fields) on professionals' information seeking. The authors proposed an analytic model of professionals' information seeking behaviour, intended to be generalizable across the professions, thus providing a platform for future research in the area. The model was intended to "prompt new insights... and give rise to more refined and applicable theories of information seeking" (1996, p. 188). The model has been adapted by Wilkinson (2001) who proposes a model of the information seeking of lawyers.

Information society.

An information society is a society where the creation, distribution, diffusion, uses, integration and manipulation of information is a significant economic, political, and cultural activity. The aim of an information society is to gain competitive advantage internationally, through using IT in a creative and productive way. The knowledge economy is its economic counterpart, whereby wealth is created through the economic exploitation of understanding. People who have the means to partake in this form of society are sometimes called digital citizens.  Basically, an information society is the means of getting information from one place to another (Wark, 1997, p. 22). As technology has become more advanced over time so too has the way we have adapted in sharing this information with each other.  Information society theory discusses the role of information and information technology in society, the question of which key concepts should be used for characterizing contemporary society, and how to define such concepts. It has become a specific branch of contemporary sociology.

Knowledge representation and reasoning.

Knowledge representation (KR) is an area of artificial intelligence research aimed at representing knowledge in symbols to facilitate inferencing from those knowledge elements, creating new elements of knowledge. The KR can be made to be independent of the underlying knowledge model or knowledge base system (KBS) such as a semantic network.  Knowledge Representation (KR) research involves analysis of how to reason accurately and effectively and how best to use a set of symbols to represent a set of facts within a knowledge domain. A symbol vocabulary and a system of logic are combined to enable inferences about elements in the KR to create new KR sentences. Logic is used to supply formal semantics of how reasoning functions should be applied to the symbols in the KR system. Logic is also used to define how operators can process and reshape the knowledge. Examples of operators and operations include, negation, conjunction, adverbs, adjectives, quantifiers and modal operators. The logic is interpretation theory. These elements—symbols, operators, and interpretation theory—are what give sequences of symbols meaning within a KR.

Information science (also known as information studies) is an academic field which is primarily concerned with analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, dissemination, and protection of information. Practitioners within and outside the field study the application and the usage of knowledge in organizations along with the interaction between people, organizations, and any existing information systems with the aim of creating, replacing, improving, or understanding information systems. Historically, information science is associated with computer science, psychology, technology and intelligence agencies. However, information science also incorporates aspects of diverse fields such as archival science, cognitive science, commerce, law, linguistics, museology, management, mathematics, philosophy, public policy, and social sciences.

Informationswissenschaft untersucht Information und Wissen. Sie beschäftigt sich mit deren Präsentation und Repräsentation in (meist digitalen) Systemen und dem Suchen und Finden von relevantem Wissen. Außerdem werden die Eigenschaften und das Verhalten von Information, der Informationsfluss sowie die Möglichkeiten der Informationsverarbeitung in natürlichen und künstlichen Systemen erforscht. Für das Verständnis der Informationswissenschaft relevant ist die Bedeutung von "Information" als einem dynamischen Prozess (aktiv: informieren; passiv: informiert werden) und von "Wissen" als etwas Statischem, das in Dokumenten, digital oder als persönliches Wissen in den Köpfen von Menschen fixiert ist. Information ist damit der aktive Teil von Wissen, das in einer konkreten Situation benötigt wird.


Etymology and discovery.

The word "quantum" comes from the Latin "quantus", meaning "how great". "Quanta", short for "quanta of electricity" (electrons), was used in a 1902 article on the photoelectric effect by Philipp Lenard, who credited Hermann von Helmholtz for using the word in the area of electricity. However, the word "quantum" in general was well known before 1900. It was often used by physicians, such as in the term "quantum satis". Both Helmholtz and Julius von Mayer were physicians as well as physicists. Helmholtz used "quantum" with reference to heat in his article on Mayer's work, and the word "quantum" can be found in the formulation of the first law of thermodynamics by Mayer in his letter dated July 24, 1841.  In 1901, Max Planck used "quanta" to mean "quanta of matter and electricity", gas, and heat. In 1905, in response to Planck's work and the experimental work of Lenard (who explained his results by using the term "quanta of electricity"), Albert Einstein suggested that radiation existed in spatially localized packets which he called "quanta of light" ("Lichtquanta").  The concept of quantization of radiation was discovered in 1900 by Max Planck, who had been trying to understand the emission of radiation from heated objects, known as black-body radiation. By assuming that energy can be absorbed or released only in tiny, differential, discrete packets (which he called "bundles", or "energy elements"), Planck accounted for certain objects changing colour when heated. On December 14, 1900, Planck reported his findings to the German Physical Society, and introduced the idea of quantization for the first time as a part of his research on black-body radiation. As a result of his experiments, Planck deduced the numerical value of "h", known as the Planck constant, and reported more precise values for the unit of electrical charge and the Avogadro–Loschmidt number, the number of real molecules in a mole, to the German Physical Society. After his theory was validated, Planck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery in 1918.

Quantization.

While quantization was first discovered in electromagnetic radiation, it describes a fundamental aspect of energy not just restricted to photons. In the attempt to bring theory into agreement with experiment, Max Planck postulated that electromagnetic energy is absorbed or emitted in discrete packets, or quanta.

In physics, a quantum (plural quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a physical property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This means that the magnitude of the physical property can take on only values consisting of integer multiples of one quantum.

In der Physik wird unter Quant (von ‚wie groß‘, ‚wie viel‘) ein Objekt verstanden, das durch einen Zustandswechsel in einem System mit diskreten Werten einer physikalischen Größe erzeugt wird. Quantisierte Größen werden im Rahmen der Quantenmechanik und davon inspirierten Teilgebieten der theoretischen Physik wie der Quantenelektrodynamik beschrieben. Quanten können immer nur in bestimmten Portionen dieser physikalischen Größe auftreten, sie sind mithin die Quantelung dieser Größen.


Etymology.

The origin of the word "effective" stems from the Latin word effectīvus, which means creative, productive or effective. It surfaced in Middle English between 1300 and 1400 A.D.

Usage.

In mathematics, "effective" is sometimes used as a synonym of "algorithmically computable".  In physics, an effective theory is, similar to a phenomenological theory, a framework intended to explain certain (observed) effects without the claim that the theory correctly models the underlying (unobserved) processes.  In heat transfer, "effectiveness" is a measure of the performance of a heat exchanger when using the NTU method.  In medicine, effectiveness relates to how well a treatment works in practice, especially as shown in pragmatic clinical trials, as opposed to efficacy, which measures how well it works in explanatory clinical trials or research laboratory studies. In management, effectiveness relates to "getting the right things done". Peter Drucker reminds us that "effectiveness "can" and "must" be learned".  In human–computer interaction, effectiveness is defined as "the accuracy and completeness of users' tasks while using a system".  In military science, effectiveness is a criterion used to assess changes determined in the target system, in its behavior, capability, or assets, tied to the attainment of an end state, achievement of an objective, or creation of an effect., while combat effectiveness is: "...the readiness of a military unit to engage in combat based on behavioral, operational, and leadership considerations. Combat effectiveness measures the ability of a military force to accomplish its objective and is one component of overall military effectiveness."

Related terms.

Efficacy, efficiency, and effectivity are terms that can, in some cases, be interchangeable with the term effectiveness. The word "effective" is sometimes used in a quantitative way, "being very effective or not very effective". However, neither effectiveness, nor effectively, inform about the direction (positive or negative) and the comparison to a standard of the given effect. Efficacy, on the other hand, is the extent to which a desired effect is achieved; the ability to produce a desired amount of the desired effect, or the success in achieving a given goal. Contrary to the term efficiency, the focus of efficacy is the achievement as such, not the resources spent in achieving the desired effect. Therefore, what is effective is not necessarily efficacious, and what is efficacious is not necessarily efficient.  Other synonyms for effectiveness include: clout, capability, success, weight, performance. Antonyms for effectiveness include: uselessness, ineffectiveness.  Simply stated, effective means achieving an effect, and efficient means achieving it with little waste. To illustrate: suppose, in order to arrest a murderer, the police bring in twenty officers, close off the streets and engage the man in a long gun battle before finally getting him in handcuffs. That would be effective, in the sense that the desired effect is achieved. But if the murderer steps out of his front door to smell the roses and three officers put the handcuffs on him, that is efficient.

Effectiveness is the capability of producing a desired result or the ability to produce desired output. When something is deemed effective, it means it has an intended or expected outcome, or produces a deep, vivid impression.

Effektivität (von ‚bewirkend‘) ist ein Maß für "Wirksamkeit", welches das Verhältnis von erreichtem Ziel zu definiertem Ziel beschreibt. Es gibt Aufschluss darüber, wie nahe ein erzieltes Ergebnis dem angestrebten Ergebnis gekommen ist.


Classification and diversity.

There are over 22,000 living annelid species, ranging in size from microscopic to the Australian giant Gippsland earthworm and "Amynthas mekongianus" (Cognetti, 1922), which can both grow up to long. Although research since 1997 has radically changed scientists' views about the evolutionary family

Distinguishing features.

No single feature distinguishes Annelids from other invertebrate phyla, but they have a distinctive combination of features. Their bodies are long, with segments that are divided externally by shallow ring-like constrictions called annuli and internally by septa ("partitions") at the same points, although in some species the septa are incomplete and in a few cases missing. Most of the segments contain

Description.

Segmentation.

Most of an annelid's body consists of segments that are practically identical, having the same sets of internal organs and external chaetae (Greek χαιτη, meaning "hair") and, in some species, appendages. The frontmost and rearmost sections are not regarded as true segments as they do not contain the standard sets of organs and do not develop in the same way as the true segments. The frontmost section, called the prostomium (Greek προ- meaning "in front of" and στομα meaning "mouth") contains the brain and sense organs, while the rearmost, called

Body wall, chaetae and parapodia.

Annelids' cuticles are made of collagen fibers, usually in layers that spiral in alternating directions so that the fibers cross each other. These are secreted by the one-cell deep epidermis (outermost skin layer). A few marine annelids that live in tubes lack cuticles, but their tubes have a similar structure, and mucus-secreting glands in the epidermis protect their skins. Under the epidermis is the dermis, which is made of connective tissue, in other words a combination of cells and non-cellular materials such as collagen. Below this are two layers of muscles, which develop from the lining of the coelom (body cavity): circular muscles make a segment longer and slimmer when they contract, while under them are longitudinal muscles, usually four distinct strips, whose contractions make the segment shorter and fatter. Some annelids also have oblique internal muscles that connect the underside of the body to each side.  The setae ("hairs") of annelids project out from the epidermis to provide traction and other capabilities. The simplest are unjointed

Nervous system and senses.

The brain generally forms a ring round the pharynx (throat), consisting of a pair of ganglia (local control centers) above and in front of the pharynx, linked by nerve cords either side of the pharynx to another pair of ganglia just below and behind it. The brains of polychaetes are generally in the prostomium, while those of clitellates are in the peristomium or sometimes the first segment behind the prostomium. In some very mobile and active polychaetes the brain is enlarged and more complex, with visible hindbrain, midbrain and forebrain sections. The rest of the central nervous system, the ventral nerve cord, is generally "ladder-like", consisting of a pair of nerve cords that run through the bottom part of the body and have in each segment paired ganglia linked by a transverse connection. From each segmental ganglion a branching system of local nerves runs into the body wall and then encircles the body. However, in most polychaetes the two main nerve cords are fused, and in the tube-dwelling genus "Owenia" the single nerve chord has no ganglia and is located in the epidermis.

Coelom, locomotion and circulatory system.

Most annelids have a pair of coelomata (body cavities) in each segment, separated from other segments by septa and from each other by vertical mesenteries. Each septum forms a sandwich with connective tissue in the middle and mesothelium (membrane that serves as a lining) from the preceding and following segments on either side. Each mesentery is similar except that the mesothelium is the lining of each of the pair of coelomata, and the blood vessels and, in polychaetes, the main nerve cords are embedded in it. The mesothelium is made of modified epitheliomuscular cells; in other words, their bodies form

Respiration.

In some annelids, including earthworms, all respiration is via the skin. However, many polychaetes and some clitellates (the group to which

Feeding and excretion.

Feeding structures in the mouth region vary widely, and have little correlation with the animals' diets. Many polychaetes have a muscular pharynx that can be everted (turned inside out to extend it). In these animals the foremost few segments often lack septa so that, when the muscles in these segments contract, the sharp increase in fluid pressure from all these segments everts the pharynx very quickly. Two families, the Eunicidae and Phyllodocidae, have evolved jaws, which can be used for seizing

Reproduction and life cycle.

Asexual reproduction.

Polychaetes can reproduce asexually, by dividing into two or more pieces or by budding off a new individual while the parent remains a complete organism. Some oligochaetes, such as "Aulophorus furcatus", seem to reproduce entirely asexually, while others reproduce asexually in summer and sexually in autumn. Asexual reproduction in oligochaetes is

Sexual reproduction.

It is thought that annelids were originally animals with two separate sexes, which released ova and sperm into the water via their nephridia. The fertilized eggs develop into trochophore larvae, which live as plankton. Later they sink to the sea-floor and metamorphose into miniature adults: the part of the trochophore between the apical tuft and the prototroch becomes the prostomium (head); a small area round the trochophore's anus becomes the pygidium (tail-piece); a narrow band immediately in front of that becomes the growth zone that produces new segments; and the rest of the trochophore becomes the peristomium (the segment that contains the mouth).  However, the lifecycles of most living polychaetes, which are almost all marine animals, are unknown, and only about 25% of the 300+ species whose lifecycles are known follow this pattern. About 14% use a similar external fertilization but produce yolk-rich eggs, which reduce the time the larva needs to spend among the plankton, or eggs from which miniature adults emerge rather than larvae. The rest care for the fertilized eggs until they hatch – some by producing jelly-covered masses of eggs which they tend, some by attaching the

Ecological significance.

Charles Darwin's book "The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms" (1881) presented the first scientific analysis of earthworms' contributions to soil fertility. Some burrow while others live entirely on the surface, generally in moist leaf litter. The burrowers loosen the soil so that oxygen and water can penetrate it, and both surface and burrowing worms help to produce soil by mixing organic and mineral matter, by accelerating the decomposition of organic matter and thus making it more quickly available to other organisms, and by concentrating minerals and converting them to forms that plants can use more easily. Earthworms are also important prey for birds ranging in size from robins to storks, and for mammals ranging from shrews to badgers, and in some cases conserving earthworms may be essential for conserving endangered birds.  Terrestrial annelids can be invasive

Interaction with humans.

Earthworms make a significant contribution to soil fertility. The rear end of the Palolo worm, a marine polychaete that tunnels through coral, detaches in order to spawn at the surface, and the people of Samoa regard these spawning modules as a delicacy. Anglers sometimes find that worms are more effective bait than artificial flies, and worms can be kept for several days in a tin lined with damp moss. Ragworms are commercially important as bait and as food sources for aquaculture, and there have been proposals to farm them in order to reduce over-fishing of their natural populations. Some marine polychaetes' predation on molluscs causes serious losses to fishery and aquaculture operations.

Evolutionary history.

Fossil record.

Since annelids are soft-bodied, their fossils are rare. Polychaetes' fossil record consists mainly of the jaws that some species had and the mineralized tubes that some secreted. Some Ediacaran fossils such as "Dickinsonia" in some ways resemble polychaetes, but the similarities are too vague for these fossils to be classified with confidence. The small shelly fossil "Cloudina", from, has been classified by some authors as an annelid, but by others as a cnidarian (i.e. in the phylum to which jellyfish and sea anemones belong). Until 2008 the earliest fossils widely accepted as annelids were the polychaetes "Canadia" and "Burgessochaeta", both from Canada's Burgess Shale, formed about in the early Cambrian. "Myoscolex", found in Australia and a little older than the Burgess Shale, was possibly an annelid. However, it lacks some typical annelid features and has features which are not usually found in annelids and some of which are associated with other phyla. Then Simon Conway Morris and John Peel reported "Phragmochaeta" from Sirius Passet, about, and concluded that it was

Family tree.

Traditionally the annelids have been divided into two major groups, the polychaetes and clitellates. In turn the clitellates were divided into oligochaetes, which include earthworms, and hirudinomorphs, whose best-known members are leeches. For many years there was no clear arrangement of the approximately 80 polychaete families into higher-level groups. In 1997 Greg Rouse and Kristian Fauchald attempted a "first heuristic step in terms of bringing polychaete systematics to an acceptable level of rigour", based on anatomical structures, and divided polychaetes into:  Also in 1997 Damhnait McHugh, using molecular phylogenetics to compare similarities and differences in one gene, presented a very different view, in which: the clitellates were an offshoot of one branch of the polychaete family tree; the pogonophorans and echiurans, which for a few decades had been regarded as a separate phyla, were placed on other branches of the polychaete tree. Subsequent molecular phylogenetics analyses on a similar scale presented similar conclusions. In 2007 Torsten Struck and colleagues compared three genes in 81 taxa, of which nine were outgroups, in other words not considered closely related to annelids but included to give an indication of where the organisms under study are placed on the larger tree of life. For a cross-check the study used an analysis of 11 genes (including the original 3) in ten taxa. This analysis agreed that clitellates, pogonophorans and echiurans were on various branches of the polychaete family tree. It also concluded that the classification of polychaetes into Scolecida, Canalipalpata and Aciculata was useless, as the members of these alleged groups were scattered all over the family tree derived from comparing the 81 taxa. It also placed sipunculans, generally regarded at the time as a separate phylum, on another branch of the polychaete tree, and concluded

The annelids (Annelida, from Latin ', "little ring"), also known as the ringed worms or segmented worms, are a large phylum, with over 22,000 extant species including ragworms, earthworms, and leeches. The species exist in and have adapted to various ecologies – some in marine environments as distinct as tidal zones and hydrothermal vents, others in fresh water, and yet others in moist terrestrial environments.

Die Ringelwürmer (Anneliden, Annelida) oder auch Gliederwürmer bilden aufgrund ihres eigenständigen Bauplans einen Stamm innerhalb der Stammgruppe der Lophotrochozoen (Lophotrochozoa), die zu den Urmündern (Protostomia) gehören. Ringelwürmer werden in zwei Klassen eingeteilt: Vielborster (Polychaeta) und Gürtelwürmer (Clitellata), die sich in Wenigborster (Oligochaeta) und Egel (Hirudinea) aufteilen. Insgesamt gibt es etwa 18.000 verschiedene Arten.