By a variety of measures, information science is in excellent health. The community supports several academic journals and conferences of the highest quality, the iSchools movement continues to grow, and the impact of pure and applied research is keenly felt on the design and development of products and services of many kinds, which benefit society and culture in many ways. A couple of years ago, the publication of the magisterial 3rd edition of the Encyclopedia of library and information sciences provided an especially compelling demonstration of the breadth, depth and vibrancy of the field, in terms not only of problems addressed but also of approaches taken.

So it's all the more inexplicable that – until now – we really haven't had much of a choice when it comes to introductory textbooks. I remember coming across Brian and Alina Vickery's Information science in theory and practice on the shelves where I worked as a library assistant in 1988 and thinking, ‘Yes – this is the field for me.’ A quarter of a century on, I'm never completely comfortable in my recommendations of similarly inspirational introductions. (Occasionally I've wondered to myself what such a text should now be like; but it's a very good thing I've never attempted to write one. I would get stuck on the first chapter, going round and round on two questions: ‘But … is information science really a science?’ and, maybe even less constructively, ‘But … is information science really about information?’) I should make it clear at this point that the authors of the present work were absolutely adamant that this foreword should not be used to provide a testimonial for their book. But I also feel the need, very strongly, to put on record that a lot of people have been waiting quite some time for just this book.

My hope and expectation is that newcomers to the field will be inspired by the book to take information science in bold and productive directions. If the field is to continue to have impact at the levels that it has had in the recent past, then clearly it must continue to generate knowledge of fairly specific kinds (e.g., of people's information needs, and of the ways those needs may be satisfied most effectively) that allows for continuous improvements in the design of information access systems.