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Signs, the only thing with which a human being can, without derogation, consent to have any transaction, being a sign himself, are triadic; since a sign denotes a subject, and signifies a form of fact, which latter it brings into connexion with the former. [...] (Charles S. Peirce (CP: 6.344)[1] Some Amazing Mazes, Fourth Curiosity (1909)).
Introduction
In 1978 Nicholas Belkin published an article in Journal of Documentation entitled "Information concepts for information science" ([2] Belkin, 1978). In the article Belkin formulated a concept of information, involving a number of definitional, behavioral, as well as methodological requirements. Belkin's conception of information has been and still is influential, and can be considered as being paradigmatic for the so-called cognitive viewpoint in IR and IIR ([6] Ellis, 1992; [8] Ingwersen, 1992; [9] Ingwersen and Järvelin, 2005; [3] Borlund, 2003; [1] Belkin et al. , 1982; [16] Sutcliffe and Ennis, 1998; [5] Brookes, 1980).
The reason for us to address Belkin's concept of information is that we believe the definition given by him is still valid; however, in the research conducted by Belkin and followers of the cognitive view, we miss a focus on two central issues related to two of his definitional requirements for a concept of information - namely, a focus on, firstly, the nature of the effect of information on the recipient, and, secondly, the process whereby information is turned into knowledge. We believe by shedding light on these issues using the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce's (1839-1914) pheno-semeiotic philosophy, we may provide for a stronger and more precise determination of the concept of information useful in LIS - we boldly name this the semeiotic viewpoint inspired by the cognitive viewpoint.
We are aware of Belkin's distinction between defining and conceptualizing a concept as he states: "Notice that what is suggested here, and indeed by many other writers is that we are not concerned with definitions of information, but rather with concepts of information. The distinction is that a definition presumably says what the phenomenon defined is, whereas a concept is a way of looking at, or interpreting, the phenomenon" ([2] Belkin, 1978, p. 58). However, in our understanding a concept always implies a definition; if not how else can someone address a given phenomenon...