Stability in the growth of knowledge

Merely more documents, more specialties, and more people who use or add to growing knowledge do not constitute an explosive situation: what is critical is whether or not the growth remains stable in the sense that cumulated knowledge relates to real life. Two developments which can be anticipated during the next few decades are computer‐aided bibliographic control and computer aids to individual decision‐making. The first will give us greater options for tracing and detecting aggregations of bibliographic items which “belong together” through a network of interrelated (e.g., biographic and bibliographic) elements. The second will enrich our capabilities for posing and solving real‐life problems. Underlying the development of technologies and their use in well‐engineered information systems such as these two is an emerging new scholarly discipline. This paper outlines some of the concepts, methods, and problems in this field. Priority is given to evaluation and synthesis above access. The main idea behind the proposed logical structuring of this field is that the “growing literature” organizes knowledge analogously to the way a learner, by creating models of his relevant environment, is able to take increasingly effective actions.