Edinburgh Napier University

  With the development of large information spaces such as digital libraries, the notion of user navigation through such spaces has gained prominence. The popular view of navigation is that it is a conscious, goal directed activity in which someone is trying to reach a destination. Such a view of navigation is essentially individualistic, objectivist and cognitive. A semiotic analysis of space recognises that there are many different views of space and that space is a subjectively defined concept. There is a context to space which needs to be communicated, negotiated and understood between people. More than just space, there is the idea of place. People produce or construct their places at different times and there is a knock on effect from one place to another. In this paper some implications of taking this different view of information space are explored