Pilot Project for a Future University

Academic units (schools and departments) are usually identified either (i) by focusing on a distinctive subject matter, and/or (ii) by employing a particular method or approach. This combination of subject matter and method forms the basis for the disciplines or fields to which we take ourselves to be held accountable.

I will propose that the emerging breed of "Information Schools" should break this mold. "Information" is an almost vacuously broad notion, after all; everyone deals with information in one form or another. The term is unlikely ever to denote an appropriately circumscribed subject matter. Nor, given the impact of information on the world, should we restrict ourselves to an identifiable set of methods. Information-dependent phenomena cover the entire gamut of worldly affairs.

Rather, the rationale for the existence of i-schools must be understood diachronically — as "change agents" within the structure of society. What then should be our goal? To prototype the future of information-intensive practices, as society adapts to the transformative effects of new information technologies.