Whether the above mentioned terms should be regarded as synonyms or not depends partly on
the theoretical perspective. Dierent LIS schools in the world emphasize dierent aspects, as
do dierent trends in the history of the field. People in schools of library and information
science dier very much in their theoretical orientation and on what problems they focus.
People focusing on the use of IT have a tendency to prefer the term ``information science''13
while people engaged in library history often prefer ``library studies''. I myself like the word
``documentation'' very much and find that ``Library, Documentation, and Information
Studies'' is the broadest and most comprehensive name for our field.
Schrader studied about 700 definitions of ``Information Science'' and its antecedents from
1900 to 1981 and found that: ``. . . the literature of information science is characterized by
conceptual chaos. This conceptual chaos issues from a variety of problems in the definitional
literature of information science: uncritical citing of previous definitions; con¯ating of study
and practice; obsessive claims to scientific status; a narrow view of technology; disregard for
literature without the science or technology label; inappropriate analogies; circular definition;