One of the main objectives of the Fourth International Conference on the Foundations of Information Science, held in Beijin on past August, was the foundation of an interdisciplinary scientific union in information studies which unlike “information science” integrates not only social, humanistic and technical sciences but also natural, formal and philosophical. (See report of the Conference in: BITrum site or in BITagora)

Although the space of the conference was not enough to agree details concerning methodological and organizational aspects (which will be further by a special committee), it was relatively easy to accord the general purpose of bringing together endeavours for constituting a wide disciplinary domain at the international level in which the multifaceted aspects of information (formal, physical, chemical, biological, cognitive, ethical, social, technological and philosophical) were integrated. 

The number of methodological proposals presented in the congress aimed at building a new science of information with the aforementioned features (about one-fourth of the contributions) shows by itself: on the one hand, the consensus concerning the general purpose; on the other hand, the lack of methodological agreement. Among these proposals, domusBITae was presented by José María Díaz as a toehold for bridging the global community of information studies without methodological commitments: as electronic-Infrastructure to facilitate the articulation of the involved community -for communicating, sharing resources and results, cooperation, etc.-, and to enable the mutual understanding by means of disambiguation and clarification of each other viewpoint -as discussed in the aforementioned reports-: (J.M. Díaz Nafría and F. Salto, Towards a transdisciplinary frame: Bridging domains, a multidimensional approach to information, http://www.sciforum.net/presentation/278)

The interest for consolidating a discipline for the study of information including the aforementioned aspects offered a sufficient basis to decide the constitution of the international association, named: “International Society for Information Studies” (ISIS), which details will be defined by the aforementioned special committee. The acronym of the founded association, ISIS, corresponds to the name of the ancient Egyptian goddess who reconstructs her husband Osiris after he was cut up and disseminated by his jealous brother Seth. Allegorically, this represents an obvious correlate with the role of information. 

As it was accorded, ISIS will support and use the eventually developed domusBITae infrastructure as an articulation means of the society for which the Internet domain www.is4is.org has already been reserved.